The Caregiving Gap: Who Feels Confident Caring for Children?

Abstract

Mothers still do more childcare per week than fathers. We call this the caregiving gap, a persistent source of gender inequality. Meanwhile, men’s involvement in care boasts wide-ranging benefits for women, men, and children. Here, we focus on one important, understudied cultural dimension that shapes men’s time spent in care: confidence. We apply unique data from The American Social Survey (n = 1061) to weigh two theoretical arguments—gender socialization and self-efficacy theory—and assess how perceived competence in caring for children of different ages varies by gender and parental status. Our results indicate a dynamic interaction of socialization and exposure to caregiving in boosting ..