Project team: Prof. Dr. Marion Müller, Dr. Marie-Kristin Döbler (in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Nicole Zillien and Julia Gerstewitz, M.A., Universität Gießen)
Funding: DFG
Duration: 1.10.2020-30.9.2023

In our research project we analyze external- and self-attributions of mothers and fathers in three key transition phases in family life. The empirical study focuses on the potentially crisis-like liminal situations of becoming a parent, separation/divorce, and empty nest. Based on our results already available from the previous project, we assume that the parental division of labor manifested during pregnancy leads to lock-in-mechanisms. A parental separation or children leaving home then often represents a situation of ambiguity and uncertainty leading to reflection and renegotiation of gender-differentiated attributions and responsibilities. The aim of the project is to gain a deeper insight into the different attributions of female and male parenthood and to answer the question of how gender differences in parenthood can be justified and legitimized.
To this end, we conduct in the three key transition phases narrative interviews with affected parents and experts, group discussions, qualitative content analyses of advice literature, analyses of Internet forums and participant observations of family lawsuits
Thus, the study examines the different forms, legitimations and consequences of female and male parenthood along the liminal phases of becoming-a-parent, separation and empty nest. Furthermore, we investigate key transition phases in family life, which have so far been described mainly by macro-sociological life-course research, from the perspective of micro-sociology.