LabFam seminar series: The transition to parenthood in same-sex and different-sex couples. A theoretically informed multi-method approach
Speaker: Marie Evertsson, University of Stockholm
A vast amount of research has studied the gendered transition to parenthood, trying to disentangle its causes and consequences. In the GENPARENT project (ERC-2017-COG, GA #771770), we take this endeavor one step further by including same-sex couples in longitudinal studies of couples becoming parents (www.sofi.su.se/genparent). Research from an event-study approach of the income development before and after child birth in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden will be presented. The findings point to the importance of gender norms and identity formation for the outcome. Departing from interviews with female same-sex couples about to become parents in Sweden and the Netherlands, findings from qualitative analyses of the choice of birth mother will also be presented and discussed from the perspective of national context, physiological desires and power.
About the speaker: Evertsson’s research focus on gender inequalities in the home and in the labor market. She studies the gendered division of paid and unpaid work and the degree to which family policies influence women’s and men’s labor market prospects. Evertsson has an ERC Consolidator Grant to study the transition to parenthood and the division of care and paid work in different-sex and same-sex couples in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and the US.