Framing Fatherhood in the Dutch newspapers articles: How fatherhood is framed and to what extent this framing is ethnically and class diverse

Abstract

The Dutch government has extended the birth leave arrangement to stimulate fathers to take on more care responsibilities. This change marks and change how fathers are viewed and expected to be. The media tends to mirror these changing ideals and plays a role in the formation of social norms and stereotypes. Crucially, though, changing media portrayals are narrowly focused on white, middle-class fathers. Research on ethnic and class diversity within fatherhood ideals and framing is sparse. This research is focused on the framing of fatherhood in Dutch newspapers and what (ideal) types were represented in the Dutch newspapers. Furthermore, this conducted what types of masculinities were found in the news articles. 60 newspaper articles were collected from databank LexisNexis and analysed in QSR Nvivo 12.6. Four ideal types of fatherhood were distinguished and only the involved father was clearly represented in the newspapers articles. Regarding masculinity types, predominately the neotraditional type of masculinity was represented in the newspaper articles. It appears that there is a tension between the involved father and the neotraditional type of masculinity whereas the breadwinner role is central to this concept. Furthermore, work culture, managers and the company are key aspects for fathers to use the birth leave or not. In other words, the workplace plays an important role. The results showed that there was little to no diversity within the articles in terms of ethnicity or class.