The central European world of fatherhood policies: how individual attitudes mediate the norm of threeness in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Here is the shorter abstract: Following Rush's suggestion to explore differences across cultures, our study compares the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Appyling Rush's discussion of how individual attitudes function as mediators, we analyse how attitudes mediate the norm of threeness. We interviewed 79 parents in both countries and our results show that despite the cultural differences between the countries, there is great support for the norm of threeness. Nevertheless, individual attitudes mediate between culture differently among men than women. About 1/3 of fathers would ideally want to share part of the leave time while no mothers support this. Furthermore, most men would prefer to share the leave time if there were no economic loss, while few mothers support the idea. Apparently, mothers do not trust fathers. Our interviews give reason to believe that if well-paid father quotas were introduced and more fathers went on leave, mothers would start to trust fathers.