Gender Differences in Child Care and Work: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

During the past several decades, women have increased their labor-force participation while remaining primarily responsible for the care of children. Men have not correspondingly increased their home activity, and women’s earnings have not reached parity with men’s. A primary reason that women have failed to gain equality in the labor market may be the remaining inequalities in provision of child rearing. We consider the constraints on child rearing faced by men and review literature on animal behavior to elucidate the conditions that facilitate parental investment by males. Some factors appear to have congruent effects, in general, on paternal behavior in many species: the benefit to young of male help, the male capacity for providing help, and paternity certainty. We discuss the role of these factors in slowing the achievement of gender equality and the potential efficacy of social policy in changing existing behavior patterns.