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Azerbaijan is the largest country in the south of Caucasus region, bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south, and bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east. It has a kind of subtropical sub alpine types. And natural resources is rich. Azerbaijan has a total area of 82.6 thousand of square kilometers. As of late 2011, the gross population was 9.17 million, with GDP reaching USD 63.4 billion. Through the evaluation of global environment competitiveness, we can know that the environment competitiveness index of Azerbaijan ranks at 106 among 133 countries.

This chapter introduces the conceptual, methodological and policy framework for the book. It briefly reviews the literature on leave and work-family balance policies with respect to fathers. It examines how the recent de-gendering of leave is affecting work-family balance and fathers’ practices. It also discusses core research issues underpinning the fathers taking leave alone study describing the methodological approach and research design. The chapter concludes with a brief outline of the book structure.

It was several decades ago that feminist, fatherhood, and family scholars began to argue that father involvement has significant generative benefits for families, for children’s development (e.g., Lamb 1981), for men (e.g., Chodorow 1978; Parke 1996), for women (Pleck 1985; Okin 1989), and for the attainment of gender equality and wider social change. In relation to the latter, gender and feminist scholars speculated that father’s enhanced participation in childrearing could reverse the metaphoric relation between “rocking the cradle and ruling the world” (Dinnerstein 1977) and could potentially inhibit “a psychology of male dominance” (Chodorow 1978, p. 214). As Sara Ruddick put it, “the most revolutionary change we can make in the institution of motherhood is to include men in every aspect of childcare” (1983, p. 89). My focus in this chapter is on father involvement as part of a larger field of gender divisions of labour, with specific attention to changes and continuities in gendered parental responsibilities and how fathers taking home alone leave, as advanced in this collection, constitutes an innovative approach to the intransigence of shifting gendered parental responsibilities. This chapter focuses on the benefits of fathers taking parental leave time alone, while also pointing to some of the challenges, inside and outside the home, for fathers who engage in primary caregiving. I also attend to several conceptual issues that underpin this field of research.

In 1993 Norway was the first country to introduce a parental leave scheme exclusively earmarked for fathers, and some of the other Nordic countries have later followed suit. In the course of the 20 years that Norway has had the father’s quota it has been extended from 4 to 14 weeks and has become a mature system. In this chapter we are concerned with the consequences these changes have for the use and understanding of parental leave for fathers by studying it from the perspective of the everyday world of fathers.

We use data based on interviews with fathers who have recently been home alone with their toddlers 20 years after the introduction of the father’s quota. These fathers represent the second generation of Norwegian fathers who have used the earmarked leave. They have also experienced a much longer period of leave than the fathers in the first study as it was extended to 10 weeks. We ask how these fathers do fathering alone. How does being home alone for a longer period of time impact their care practices? We will explore how dual caring is affected by fathers staying home alone. Thus our focus is on how gender equality in care-work is affected by the father’s quota.

In Portugal there has been a continuing enhancement of fathers’ leave entitlements over the last two decades. The most recent reform of the leave system (2009) put a strong emphasis on fatherhood and gender equality by introducing a 1-month ‘bonus scheme’ in case of gender sharing. Against this backdrop, a qualitative study explored the lived experiences of 20 fathers who took leave alone, involving daylong care for a baby at home.

Interviewed fathers see themselves as fathers who had to assert and negotiate their rights to share parental leave; many faced negative reactions in the workplace. Leave is highly valued because it contributes to child well-being, strengthens father-child bonds and reduces the work penalty for working mothers. It is also seen to enable fathers to learn new skills, to foster male autonomy in care work, and to undo preconceived gender norms. Findings reveal considerable diversity in fathers’ experiences of leave. Four main profiles were identified. In a profile associated with critical discourses, fathers see themselves as primary caregivers and openly question existing conceptions of gender roles. At the opposite end of the spectrum, fathers perceive themselves as secondary caregivers and do not aspire to autonomous and individualized fathering.

The study underlines a process of pluralisation rather than a linear move from a dominant model of masculine care towards a gender-equal parental care model. From a policy perspective, findings suggest that there are significant differences between policies promoting family time and those encouraging father’s time alone.

In 2006 there was an important change in parental leave for the Canadian province of Quebec. Prior to this time all Canadian fathers could share 1 year parental leave, but the introduction of a new more generous Quebec Parental Insurance Program (QPIP) changed the situation and behaviour of fathers quite radically. This new non-transferable, more highly compensated, regime was associated with a rapid increase of participation of fathers, from 57 % in 2007 to 80 % in 2014. The changing policy environment is reviewed in the chapter, which sets the scene for findings from a qualitative study of the experience of 34 Quebec fathers who have been on leave alone with their child.

We focus on the experience of fathers who took parental or paternity leave, alone with the child for at least one month, centering on their relations with the child and wider family relationships, as well as the emotions experienced during this period. Findings show that taking the leave alone allows the father to develop a relationship of paternity as intense as the mother with the child. Quebec fathers in this study reported creating a strong “connection” or “bond” with the child. A majority of the sample interviewed had a progressive or innovative attitude towards paternity presenting a radical break with the traditional father model, assuming a new role.

Parental leave legislation in Finland aims at promoting gender equality. Fathers of young children have statutory rights to gender specific leave periods (paternity leave, father’s month) as well as gender neutral leave (parental leave, care leave). While a majority of fathers are able to take some weeks of paternity leave when their child is born, the actualization of fathers’ leave rights that give a possibility to stay at home alone with the child and take full care responsibility, is less simple and needs to be negotiated both at home between spouses and at the workplace. Interviews with fathers who have taken a longer leave show that negotiations with the spouse about leave are related to the position of both parents at the labour market, but also to ideas about the child’s best interest. Negotiations at work are testing the gendered limits of family friendliness; especially for highly educated middle class fathers who are beginning to expect employers to allow them to be caring parents.

This chapter discusses the experience of Spanish fathers on childcare leave while their partners worked. It first analyses administrative policy and the gradual recognition of men’s right to childcare leave. No fewer than 65 000 men are estimated to have chosen this strategy over the last 10 years. The aim of the study was to ascertain what prompted these fathers’ decision, the reactions to it in their social surrounds and their own experience in singly undertaking childcare. To that end, 10 in-depth interviews were held with fathers who took at least 8 weeks of childcare leave while their partners returned to paid employment. Their replies show that taking on childcare singly is a powerful socialising tool for fathers in connection with this activity. The men themselves perceived that the experience fostered not only greater participation in caring for their children, but also strengthened parent-child emotional ties.

During the past 50 years the meaning of fatherhood and expectations for Swedish fathers has changed dramatically. Norms about masculinity, previously closely related to paid work and breadwinning, have partly been replaced by new ideals in which fathers are caring and active parents. This development has been partially policy-driven; since the 1960s, fatherhood in policy discourse and practice has successively shifted towards a focus on gender equality and a dual earner-carer model. Sweden was the first country in the world that granted fathers the right to paid parental leave in 1974. Since then policy reforms and campaigns have promoted fathers’ up-take of parental leave. Today, there is a strong social norm that fathers should take parental leave and the share of days taken by fathers increases each year. However, relatively few fathers take an equal portion of the leave and relatively little research addresses whether long leaves promote a more egalitarian division of labor. This chapter presents results from interviews with 14 fathers who had taken a substantial amount of leave, who report on leave decision-making, experiences and outcomes, and explores the extent to which results suggest that long leaves are likely to promote an egalitarian model of parenthood.

Iceland has for a number of years enjoyed a reputation as one of the most gender equal countries in the world. The setting should therefore be excellent for an active involvement of fathers in the traditional tasks of mothers in caring for young children. This was radically facilitated in 2000 when the Icelandic parliament adopted a new law on parental leave which greatly increased the possibilities of fathers in this field. Statistics and studies show that fathers generally make use of their rights and that it is socially well acceptable for fathers to be at home with their children. This chapter explores the experience of a sample of fathers who have been at home alone for a fairly long period, taking between 1 and 7 months of parental leave to care for their infant. The fathers do not see their involvement with their children as an act of gender subversion but mainly as a personal and familial opportunity.