I wish we had a richer language to discuss these issues. 'Equality' defined as having near equal tasks is not necessarily something that everyone thinks is an unalloyed good, whereas equality defined as having equal value as human being is. We conflate these two issues.<p>There are people who would prefer specialization in their household roles. Traditionally this was along gender lines, but it doesn't have to be (e.g., both parents are women, one prefers more traditional mothering roles, the other more traditionally masculine roles). If there is good complementarity and both roles are treated with equal dignity, this doesn't seem bad to me, anymore than specialization that exists throughout our society.<p>I wonder how much divorce rates and adherence to traditional roles are correlated as well, which seems like an obvious confounding factor.<p>Anyway, yes I'm sure if you have divorces where each now separate household has equal responsibility and time to provide care giving to children, you're going to get more equal time and effort put into providing care giving to children.
I had to maneuver against the predominant expectations in my country to get equal time with my child as a father.<p>Sweden is on a good track, for that to be the expectation. Short of 100% time for all parents, an equal split is the next best option. A "visiting parent" cannot parent, there is simply not enough time...
<i>Opposite-sex couples in Sweden, and more broadly across the world, tend to fall into a manager-helper dynamics, in which the mother takes on the full administrative and mental workload and only delegates specific tasks for the father to fulfil. This is a dynamic that over time seems inevitable and impossible to break.</i><p>In most couples I am personally aware of, both now and in the past, most males DO NOT want this. Early in marriage females tend to want this, especially if the given female is not heavily invested in a career. It seems to be both empowering and task sharing so that the male can focus on bread winning, but it’s a control play, a game of personalities and power distribution. This becomes clear later in marriage as both financial responsibilities and children mature and may be a primary factor in relationship resentment.
maybe there is a new co-parenting arrangement viable enough to be the example. it's sensitive topic, but the deadbeat dad trope that the surprise in these findings is predicated on denies women agency and responsibility for their circumstances. It's provocative and makes discourse about what a new arrangement could be impossible. It's worth dropping it and filtering anything that depends on it.