Fatherhood in a new millennium. a country comparison: Austria, Germany, Finland, Hungary and Italy

Irene Mariam Tazi-Preve, Austrian Institute for Family Studies
Jürgen Dorbritz, Federal Institute of Population Research

Studies on fertility tend to be mainly concerned with examining women’s behaviour. In the context of the current low birth-rate, this paper emphasises the fathers’ contribution to family work. Starting with two German speaking countries in Central Europe we intend a comparison with three countries in Nothern, Southern and Eastern Europe with different political and gender-specific background. The Austrian “Population Policy Acceptance Survey” as well as the Finish, German, Hungarian and Italian PPAS provide representative data concerning the father image. We intend to investigate the opinions of respondents on questions of gender identity as well as their ideas about what functions fathers and mothers should take on in the family system. Further, we investigate whether women and men differ in their desired fertility, and what reasons are stated by men and women against having (more) children. The various question categories are checked with respect to certain sociodemographic variables.