EWS. Nordic fatherhood in policies and practises

The Nordic countries are often marvelled at in an international perspective for the progressive family policies and the perspective of gender equality which forms the basis for the Nordic welfare state. The way fatherhood is facilitated in legislation i n the Nordic countries and the results of gender equality in family and work life accordingly often serves as inspiration for other countries. This makes it important to understand how family law and family policies shape fatherhood and whether this tak es place in a similar way across the Nordic countries. It is also important to understand how current changes in the political and legislative framework such as changes in parental leave rights may impact gender equality that we normally perceive to be p art of Nordic characteristics. In the project, we will bring together leading Nordic scholars in the field, in a series of explorative workshops, in order to investigate such framing of fatherhood and the result of this, ie how men become fathers and how they engage in family life. The primary aim of the project is to write a collective research application on the topic of the policy framing of contemporary Nordic fatherhood in policies and how fatherhood is outlived in daily practises, in all five Nor dic countries. We use the explorative workshops to present current knowledge on how fatherhood is perceived in family law and parental leave legislation, and also how fatherhood is practised by fathers in daily life in the various countries. This will ma ke it possible for us to consider what are the main issues and questions which need further research and will thus form the outset for the collective research application. The secondary aim is to collect the papers from the explorative workshops and dev elop these into chapters for an English languaged book on Nordic fatherhood published