The Distribution of Unpaid Domestic Work in Hungarian Stay-at-Home Father – Working Mother Families

Éva Sztáray Kézdy , Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary
Zsófia Drjenovszky, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary

According to the traditional parental role perception unpaid domestic work, as family duties, routine housework, and care work are the mothers responsibilities while the fathers are responsible for the financial stability of the family. Besides the previously prevailing breadwinner father role, nowadays the egalitarian model is becoming increasingly prominent. In parallel a new father type appears, according to which a good father wants to be more involved in the child’s every day life. An extreme case of the involvement is when the father stays at home with his child(ren) and becomes the primary caregiver, and the mother assumes the role of breadwinner. The ratio of such families is growing around the world, but we still know relatively little about them. In our gap filling, qualitative research, based on 31 semi-structured in-depth interviews with Hungarian stay-at-home fathers and questionnaires completed by the mothers, we focus on the distribution of unpaid domestic work in this special group of Hungarian stay-at-home father – working mother families. Finding suggest that a highly egalitarian sharing of the roles and duties characterizes these families. The distribution of routine housework and care work is based on time availability perspective, and they don’t identify any masculine or feminine family duty or work. Keywords Hungarian stay-at-home fathers; housework and care work; unpaid work; qualitative research

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe