Egalitarian parental care: Literature review and conceptual construction

Abstract

This literature review discusses how the concept of egalitarian parental care is constructed as a representation of the new dynamic in parents/children relations in the contemporary world. To achieve this goal, it retrieves national and international scientific publications in the last five years and focus, as a matter of priority, on the psychological perspective. Results were presented according to data distribution between areas of knowledge, methods, international and national occurrence. Analysis was based on the following categories: assumptions for an ideal egalitarian family, contemporary parenting, parenting versus work versus professional career, and egalitarian parental care. Conclusion shows that egalitarian parental care is a trend in contemporary parenthood construction and demand further investigation in diverse contexts.