Men changing nappies: Dismantling a key barrier to gender-diversifying the early years workforce

Currently the number of men working in early years education in England is very low at 2%. This stubbornly resistant workforce pattern matters because it perpetuates the entrenched gender stereotype of young children’s education and care as women’s work. It is extraordinary to find this corner of gender statis in a world that is supposedly in the grip of a gender revolution. This gender revolution does not appear to have impacted on, or even dented, the gendered nature of the early years workforce. This is all the more remarkable because early years staffing shortages have now reached crisis point in England (the country where the authors reside and where they have carried out the research referred to in this paper). The small minority of men that do take up work in this sector often work interchangeably with their female counterparts, adopting a range of roles and responsibilities including reading, rough and tumble, comforting and food preparation. The task of intimate care however, or more specifically ‘nappy changing’, remains an area of tension within men’s presence in early years settings, with parents or carers sometimes requesting that male practitioners do not change their child’s nappy or nursery managers removing men from this role. Although the Sex Discrimination and Equalities Act 2010 stipulates that no employee should be discriminated against because of their sex, a 2-year study into the recruitment and support of men in early years education in England (GenderEYE) shows that discriminatory practices around intimate care are very much alive.