Negotiating gender equality in conjugal life and parenthood in Portugal: a case study (original) (raw)
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Portugal stands out in the European context of work and family relations for not fitting either in a traditional male breadwinner model or in a modern equitable model. Indeed, Portuguese society is characterized by a high labour market participation of both men and women and a gender traditional division of domestic and caring work, where women do the majority of tasks. This paper reports on trends regarding the division of paid and unpaid labour over recent decades in Portugal. Challenging traditional sociological and demographic explanations, the scope of this review is to offer a psycho-social approach to the antecedents and outcomes of this division, as well as the processes individuals and families engage in to deal with multiple roles. Looking at the division of paid and unpaid labour through the gender lens, we conclude that, despite some changes in attitudes and practices, the display of gender roles shape work and family relations in Portugal.
The interplay of gender, work and family in Portuguese families
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Portugal stands out in the European context of work and family relations for not fitting either into a traditional male breadwinner model or into a modern equitable model. Indeed, Portuguese society is characterised both by a high labour-market participation of both men and women and a gender-traditional division of domestic and caring work, where women do the majority of tasks. This paper reports on trends regarding the division of paid and unpaid labour over recent decades in Portugal. Challenging traditional sociological and demographic explanations, the scope of this review is to offer a psycho-social approach to the antecedents and outcomes of this division, as well as the processes individuals and families engage in to deal with multiple roles. Looking at the division of paid and unpaid labour through a gender lens, we conclude that, despite some changes in attitudes and practices, the display of gender roles still shapes both work and family relations in Portugal.
Conjugal Dissolution and Gender (In)equalities: A Study of Divorce Processes in Portugal
Sociology Study, 2018
Like other democratic societies, Portugal has known an important reduction of gender inequalities, mainly by the action of women’s social movements and some political forces. However, recent (inter)national studies confirm the social borders and inequalities persistence in many contexts (work, values and symbolic regulations, institutional frames, and daily interactions). In this paper, the authors will focus their analysis on the conjugal dissolution processes and unequal distribution of power between men and women. Regarding these matters, there is an extended debate, where they propose an articulation between the concepts of gender and class. The authors assume as fruitful an articulation of the Marxist model with the feminist one and, indirectly, a critical and synthetic crossing between (neo)Marxism and Weberianism, being this one also articulated with symbolic interactionism. Based on official statistics, in the analysis of some interviews about the motivations for/in divorce, and in the empirical evidence from the divorce judicial processes, the authors present some preliminary results of a collective project held on some regions of Portugal named: “Gender inequalities in work and private life: from the norms to social practices”. The central hypothesis of this project is that the forms of gender inequality and domination are tributaries of macro-economic and institutional mechanisms but they are also playing at the micro level (family, business, public and private institutions), involving both variables, namely, in a crossing of Weberian-Marxist perspectives, the presence/absence of certain level of empowerment by social actors. That means that women’s position depends and/or differs in function of factors such as available resources and rewards, the place in the organizational and (re)productive sphere of the family, and the place in the interactions and in roles negotiation.
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Sofia Aboim, sociologist, is a permanent research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. She has developed her research work on family and gender and her interests include family interactions and work-family balance, life course and generations, gender, feminism and masculinity as well as modernity and postcolonialism. She is the author of several books and articles in Portuguese and international academic journals.
Gender, work and family: balancing central dimensions in individuals' lives
revista.aps.pt
This article analyses the ways in which Portuguese women and men manage to balance different dimensions of their lives, namely participating in the labour market in relation to conjugality, domestic chores and parenthood. Our analysis is based on 83 in depth interviews applied to Portuguese couples living in conjugality, with at least one child and taking into account different social backgrounds as well relationships with different time spans. We argue that work has strong implications in people's lives, playing a positive role in personal identity, but also conditioning family time. An analysis on conjugality reveals that relationships aim to balance togetherness as a space of love and passion while preserving individuality and identity. Parenthood is a critical moment in these couples' lives, increasing men's and women's sense of identity but also restructuring their lives, albeit in different ways. For women parenthood often implies being pulled inside the household and postponing their work while men, on the contrary, tend to be pushed outside.
The EU Mutual Learning Programme in Gender Equality Instruments to foster long- term paternal involvement in family work Comments, 2018
This mutual learning seminar was hosted by the German government on the 4th and 5th October 2018 in Berlin. It explored approaches to promoting long-term paternal involvement in family work with a particular focus on parental leave arrangements. Good practices from Germany were presented and reviewed. Representatives and experts attended from Germany, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK. The European Commission and the European Institute for Gender Equality also participated.
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Abstract: This research report aims to provide an overview of the key findings from the project 'Employment, Family and Community Activities: a New Balance for Women and Men in Portugal', the object of which was to examine family services. This involved, inter alia, drawing up an accurate picture of the role played by such services in Portugal in relation to job creation, reconciliation of family and working life and also in equal opportunities for women and men in the home, employment and social life in general.
Community, Work & Family, 2015
This article examines work-family reconciliation processes in order to understand if, over the course of marital life, women become socially closer or further away from their partner. Drawing on work-life interviews with highly qualified women in Portugal and Britain, we compare these processes in two societies with different historical and social backgrounds. Findings reveal three main configurations of social (in)equality which emerge during married life: growing inequality in favour of the man, in favour of the woman or equality between spouses. With due attention to the importance of national specific factors, we present three main conclusions. First, (in) equality is built up over the course of marital life and female strategies for reconciling family and work are at the core of this process. Second, the national specificities can mould the effects of cross-national gender mechanisms. Third, the intersection between cross-cultural phenomena such as conservative attitudes towards domestic work and national specificities (such as the availability of part-time options) is a rather complex process which needs further research.