Working father’s legimating discourses on care reproduction

Abstract

Currently there is a wide academic debate about the incorporation of fathers into the care of their children associated with the emergence of new patterns of behavior and meanings that modify the gender order, however, there is little empirical evidence about the conditions of their reproduction. This article presents the results of qualitative research based on interviews and discussion groups with Chilean working fathers from different social classes, based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction. In this group, the legitimization of the unequal distribution of care in the family lies in the arbitrariness of the conjunction of social and subjective conditioning, making the identification of responsibilities imprecise and naturalized, and in the symbolic resistance to the appropriation of a fatherhood adapted to the life patterns of working mothers.