Couples and companies: Negotiating fathers' participation in parental leave in Germany

Abstract

This article reports on findings of a study of fathers on parental leave in Germany. Drawing on interviews with couples (n=16) and human resource managers in different companies (n=8), we analyze how fathers' parental leave is negotiated between couples and how employers deal with male employees who claim parental leave. We ask for conducive and obstructive factors to paternity leave. We analyze expected and actual workplace problems, parenting models, gender beliefs, and power relations among the couple as factors in the question of paternity leave. In most organizations, two months have become an organizational routine,, but two months also marks the threshold at which these organizations assume being able to manage paternal leave. Among the couple, an extension of paternity leave must be established against an asymmetric cultural tradition of parenthood, which is, despite of a dominant rhetoric of gender equality, still deeply embodied within the everyday routines of most couples.