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This article contributes to the sociological debate on how digital technologies (DT) have penetrated the lives of families and children, and examines the relevance of digital technologies for children and for practices of 'doing family'. We analysed qualitative data from focus groups and interviews with children between 5 and 10 years old (n=231) and interviews with further members of children's families from four different European countries (Austria, Estonia, Norway and Romania). Results reveal that DT contributed to doing family when families created and maintained a feeling of 'we-ness' through digital activities; when DT required families to balance different needs, rights, or emotions; and when caring practices were supported through DT. Children appeared as significant actors in practices of doing family. As DT helped to decouple practices of doing family from physical co-presence, doing family was expanded. When children's needs were fulfilled and their digital competences were enhanced, their resilience increased.

Objective: This study examines collective orientations and individual meanings regarding a fulfilled life with the aim of answering the questions of which social norms around childbearing become relevant in the biographical fertility decisions of women and men, and how they do so. Background: While the normative expectations of social networks have been found to be highly relevant for individuals who are in the process of deciding for or against childbearing, the findings are inconsistent and fragmented. This study contributes to the knowledge on this topic by examining social norms as normative and empirical expectations. Method: In a qualitative approach, data from five focus groups (n=22) were triangulated with biographical interviews (n=9) with women and men of different ages and different family statuses across Austria. The in-depth analysis facilitated the reconstruction of collective orientations around childbearing desires and individual meanings. Results: The desire for childbearing was identified as a gendered social norm, both in collective orientations and individuals' meanings, long before and after fertility decisions were made. Strong relationalities to social norms around gendered responsibilities for (expectant) parents also shaped individual desires, particularly women's. Conclusion: The relationalities of childbearing desires and persistent gendered parenting norms entail gendered challenges. They are related to individual self-optimization and self-responsibility, and have the potential to hamper childbearing decisions.

Objective: This paper pursues the question as to how extended flexible working possibilities in the labor market are legitimized among employers and employees and whether they have potential to mitigate inequalities. Background: Persistent and increasing gendered inequalities in Austria are reflected in the unequal division of unpaid family work in parental couples and in men's stable full-time employment while women increasingly work part-time. In recent years, employers have expanded flexible working possibilities for all employees, regardless of their gender, also in leading positions and especially for those with family responsibilities. Method: We conducted six focus groups and 16 semi-structured interviews with employers (n=30) and employees (n=25) from 29 contrasting companies across Austria. An in-depth reconstructive analysis facilitated our exploration of collective notions and concepts associated with flexible work and career opportunities. Results: The respondents constructed part-time and flexible work as a new norm strongly connected to women with (potential) children. At the same time, employers and employees legitimized that these women must be protected from penalties resulting from the ideal worker norm still in force and must be variously supported by employers. However, men - the partners of women they could support by making use of these options and taking over childcare - are not constructed as a target group. Conclusion: In a cultural context such as Austria, family-friendly flexible working opportunities perpetuate rather than level gendered inequalities, as men's need for those opportunities do not emerge in the constructions. The lack thereof is neither explicitly addressed nor challenged.

Der Übergang zur Elternschaft zieht bis heute eine ungleiche und geschlechtsspezifische Aufteilung von bezahlter Arbeit und Kinderbetreuungsarbeit nach sich. Die Erwerbsunterbrechung von Eltern und der damit einhergehende Einkommensverlust werden in Österreich von staatlicher Seite finanziell unterstützt, wobei Eltern vielfältige Möglichkeiten der Nutzung von Kinderbetreuungsgeld und Elternkarenz haben. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, wie Mütter und Väter vor und nach der Geburt ihres ersten Kindes die Organisation ihrer Karenzzeit legitimieren; unabhängig davon, ob und wie sie diese aufteilen. Auf Basis einer qualitativen Längsschnittstudie (66 Interviews mit Müttern und Vätern zu drei Zeitpunkten) werden vier zentrale Legitimierungen identifiziert: ökonomische, erwerbszentrierte, kindzentrierte und rollenspezifische Legitimierungen. Die daraus resultierenden Legitimierungsmuster und die geschlechtsspezifischen Differenzierungen zeigen die Wirkmächtigkeit sozialer Normen auf.

Die Einschätzung von Erwachsenen kann wichtig für die Erforschung von Interessen und Bedürfnissen von Kindern sein, aber auch Kinder sollten selbst als kompetente Informant:innen gesehen werden. Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungsmethoden wurden üblicherweise für die Anwendung mit Erwachsenen entwickelt. Die somit implizierten Vorannahmen können aber mit Kindern als Forschungssubjekten problematisch sein. In der Forschung mit Kindern werden besondere Herausforderungen an Forschende und das Forschungsdesign gestellt, weil Kinder andere Bedürfnisse und Fähigkeiten als Erwachsene haben. Obwohl Kinder zunehmend Teil von Forschungsprojekten sind, wurden methodische und methodologische Überlegungen zu deren Inklusion bislang selten expliziert. In einer Studie zu digitalen Technologien im Leben von Kindern, gefördert von der Europäischen Kommission, haben wir Gruppendiskussionen mit Kindern im Vorschul- (5-6 Jahre) und Grundschulalter (8-10 Jahre) durchgeführt. Im vorliegenden Beitrag beschreiben wir unsere ursprünglichen methodischen Überlegungen und reflektieren unsere Erfahrungen, um allgemeine Empfehlungen für Gruppendiskussionen mit Kindern abzuleiten. Wir fokussieren auf das Setting, die formale Struktur des Leitfadens, das Modertor:innenverhalten, die Gruppendynamik, Altersunterschiede, Fähigkeiten der Kinder sowie ethische Implikationen. Abschließend fassen wir Herausforderungen und Potenziale von Gruppendiskussionen mit jungen Kindern zusammen.

Numerous studies have explored parents' unequal involvement in care work, emphasising the formative power of the first period of parenthood. However, detailed knowledge of how care work is interlinked between parents in everyday practice during the transition to parenthood and how these linkages are related to gendered inequality is limited. Based on an Austrian qualitative longitudinal study with first-time parents (66 individual interviews with 11 couples during pregnancy, 6 and 24 months postpartum), we developed a typology of parental involvement in care that captures the relationality of parents' practices, their fluidity over time and that embraces six types of interrelated parenting practices. Results show how parental involvement is constituted by a complex interplay and sequence of parenting practices performed by both parents. With regards to gender inequality in care work, we demonstrate that parents are thus situated on a continuum between equality, dichotomy, ambiguity and inequality when doing care work. The results systematise the tremendous variety of parents' interrelated involvement in care work.

AbstractOver the past two decades, scholars have investigated a multitude of different aspects of motherhood. This article provides a scoping review of research published from 2001 to 2021, covering 115 Social Science Citation Index‐referenced papers from WEIRD countries, with the aim of reconstructing social norms around motherhood and mothers' responses to them. The analysis is theoretically based on normological and praxeological concepts. The findings reveal five contemporary norms of motherhood that reflect both stability and increasing differentiation, and are related to five types of mothers: the norms of being attentive to the child (present mother), of securing the child's successful development (future‐oriented mother), of integrating employment into mothering (working mother), of being in control (public mother), and of being contented (happy mother). Relying on an intersectional lens, we analyze mothers' heterogeneous responses to these norms of motherhood, and examine how neoliberal demands build on and perpetuate inequalities.

Basierend auf Gruppendiskussionen und biographischen Interviews mit Frauen und Männern analysiert diese Studie soziale Normen und individuelle Bedeutungen rund um Lebenszufriedenheit und eigenen Kindern. Sie zeigt, dass der Kinderwunsch normativ erwartet und mit Normen guter Mutterschaft und Selbstverantwortung verknüpft ist. Dies zieht ungleiche Herausforderungen für Frauen und Männer nach sich.

Die qualitative Teilstudie der Evaluierung des Kinderbetreuungsgeldgesetzes (KBGG) und des Familienzeitbonusgesetzes (FamZeitbG) hatte einerseits die Funktion, tiefgreifende Erkenntnisse und Antworten zu den Zielen und Maßnahmen der Gesetzesnovelle aus Sicht der Bezieher/innen zu liefern. Die Studie fokussiert auf die in der Wirkungsorientierten Folgenabschätzung (WFA) explizierten politischen Zielsetzungen, nämlich: (a) die Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf zu verbessern, (b) die Väterbeteiligung zu erhöhen und (c) die Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern zu fördern. Die Studie zielt darauf ab, die Bedeutung dieser Ziele in der Alltagsrealität und im Entscheidungs- und Argumentationsverhalten von Müttern und Vätern zu eruieren, die Kinderbetreuungsgeld (KBG) bzw. den Familienzeitbonus (FZB) beziehen oder bezogen haben.

The birth of a child often reinforces an unequal division of employment and care work among heterosexual couples. Parental leave programmes that foster long leaves tend to increase this inequality within couples. However, by investigating a particularly long parental leave system, we show that specific practices enable parents to share care work equally. Our ethnographic study includes interviews with heterosexual couples, observations in prenatal classes and information material available to parents. Specific sets of practices – managing economic security, negotiating employment, sharing information with peers and feeding practices – involved parents who shared care work equally and parents who divided care work unequally. Contingent on specific situated practices, the arrangement of care work shifted in an equal or unequal direction. Even within long parental leaves, equality between parents was facilitated when economic security was provided through means other than income, when work hours were flexible, mothers had a close relationship to work, information on sharing equally was available and children were bottle-fed. Consequently, an equal share of care work is not the effect of solely structural, individual, cultural or normative matters, but of their entanglement in practices.

"Although fathers' involvement in care work has increased, the transition to parenthood still implies a gendered division of labour. In order to gain more knowledge of this ambivalence, we focus on the variability of father involvement at this transition. Based on an Austrian qualitative longitudinal study with couples experiencing the transition to first-time parenthood, we examined how fathers' affective, cognitive and behavioural involvement varies across the transition process. Changes in fathers' involvement culminated at particular points in time, conceptualised as turning points. Results show that the transition to fatherhood is characterised by a variety of prepregnancy, prenatal and postnatal turning points at which father involvement undergoes crucial transformations. Father involvement varies not only between fathers, but also within individual transitions. The study indicates that turning points contribute to the dynamics and fluidity of the transition process." (author's abstract)

Diese Studie zeigt die Entwicklungen im Erwerbsarbeitsverhalten von Frauen in Österreich und die Bedeutung vielfältiger Arbeitszeitmodelle auf. Die Ergebnisse machen deutlich, dass die damit zusammenhängenden Leitvorstellungen Geschlechtergleichstellung eher behindern als fördern. Grundlage sind Gruppendiskussionen und Interviews mit insgesamt 30 Arbeitgeber/innen und 25 Arbeitnehmer/innen österreichweit sowie Analysen der Arbeitskräfteerhebungen 2008 bis 2018.