<\/span><\/h2>\nBut macroeconomics tends to stay clear of fatherhood. Political scientists are also rarely present in the research debate. But their insights might bridge the gulf between existing child development evidence and more widespread adoption of policies supporting positive fatherhood.<\/p>\n
Without their research, one is left to speculate about what\u2019s going wrong. It may be that governments see policies that support positive fatherhood as at odds with a key goal: keeping their economies well-supplied with affordable workers. This goal may be good for families, providing vital income. It\u2019s also consistent with policies designed for mothers that increase their participation in the job market. But backing engaged fatherhood is more problematic.<\/p>\n
When fathers identify more as carers, they may shift from their traditional focus as workers. They may, then, prefer to work less, behaving more like mothers, for whom wage labour competes with the rewards of engaged parent-child relationships. In economic terms, increased caring fatherhood could be seen as equivalent in impact to a constraint on the labour supply.<\/p>\n
In short, governments, driven by strategies for high employment, may have little incentive to support policies that shift fathers\u2019 focus closer to home. It might even be said that most dads are exactly where most governments want them to be \u2013 at work. And if they\u2019re not, the main option that policy typically gives them is to look for work.<\/p>\n
This is why we need to learn more from macroeconomics about the wider and longer-term economic gains and losses that spring from supporting caring fatherhood. Insights from political scientists are also required to explain the dynamics of the Nordic countries\u2019 political systems which have been early adopters of enlightened fatherhood policies.<\/p>\n
We need to understand what\u2019s inspiring them and what\u2019s holding up the rest of the world. Optimising child development demands a more thorough understanding of what might encourage governments to implement father-friendly policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Governments struggle to support positive, engaged fatherhood. Macroeconomics and political science might help explain what\u2019s delaying policy reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":7159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5773],"tags":[1283,5752,25,2,36,306,470,39,41],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7142"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17987,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7142\/revisions\/17987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}