ABSTRACT
Women’s roles have changed markedly in recent decades but so, too, have men’s. For example, in Australia, the USA, and the UK female participation in the workforce has increased dramatically over the past several decades to reach nearly 60 per cent, and it is common for mothers to work outside the home (World Bank, 2015). Similar trends are evident in many other developed nations. Corres - pond ingly there are greater expectations on men to do their share of housework and childcare and to take on roles of nurturance and relationship maintenance – once considered women’s work. Younger men are taking up this challenge. For example, 90 per cent of Australian men and women now believe that a father should be as heavily involved in looking after his children as a mother, a huge attitudinal shift (Evans and Gray, 2005). Further research indicates that men and women believe that housework and parenting should be shared, not divided by gender (Evans and Gray, 2005; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2005). Even if they haven’t quite put the theory into practice yet, when this generation of men become grandfathers many will be comfortable about running a load of washing, changing a nappy or making a nutritious lunch for the grandchildren. But what of today’s grandfathers, products of a different era? Do they embrace or reject new trends in gender equality in parenting as they take on the grandparenting role? Or do grandfathers’ roles structure more along gender-stereotypic lines? Research findings are limited and mixed, this being an area likely to be strongly affected by current social mores and one in which attitudes vary greatly across nations and socio-cultural groups.
