Chair of Economic and Social History “Time with (Grand)Fathers. Forms of Male Parenthood in the Structural Economic Change of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century”
research topic
The social figure of the “new father” has appeared as a frequently cited ideal but a rarely practised reality since the 1970s. As illustrated in a 1975 Brigitte article by Sonja Pape on “partner marriage”, accompanied by the photograph shown below, the “new father” was expected to be involved in childcare from the very beginning. This evokes an image of a father who is deeply engaged in everyday life with his children and family, who may reduce his working hours in favour of family time, and is emotionally involved. As both a political and normative project, this idea entered the women’s and men’s movements and has shaped expectations and conceptions of fatherhood since the 1970s. With some delay, it was also applied to grandfathers.
The research project investigates the social roles and practices of male (grand)parenthood in the context of structural change. We approach the subject first from a gender and family history perspective, focusing on the norms and shapes of masculinity as well as on parental relationships and men’s relations with their children and grandchildren. These perspectives inform our research interest, which seeks to better understand the changes in the self-image and everyday practices of fathers and grandfathers in the second half of the twentieth century. We examine types and transformations of fatherhood and grandfatherhood between the post-war period and the 1980s.
The processes described historiographically as the end of high modernity set in motion a variety of, at times, contradictory developments. Established social forms of life, such as the breadwinner marriage and the nuclear family, came under scrutiny after a period of normative dominance in the 1950s and 1960s. The period under investigation concludes with the structural changes in the socio-economic conditions of the Federal Republic of Germany in the late 1980s. Alongside these changes, which can be demonstrated through economic indicators, the new social movements of the 1970s and 1980s mark another significant turning point.
research questions
The main question of the research project concerns how grandfatherhood and fatherhood changed during the structural transformation in the Federal Republic of Germany.
This general guiding question is specified through the following:
- What everyday paternal and grandpaternal activities – i.e. actions by men relating to children and grandchildren – existed?
- Why was more or less time devoted to them?
- Which factors prevented or enabled fathers and grandfathers from spending time with children and grandchildren?
- Which factors made it necessary for them to do so?
- How did they evaluate male (grand)parenthood?
- Can particular social groups or milieus be identified that produced new forms of (grand)fatherhood?
Particular attention is given to the effects of economic and working conditions on care relationships, practices, and self-images of fathers and grandfathers. While this connection is indeed a theme in current public debate, it has scarcely been addressed in historical research. The project proceeds from the hypothesis that the extent and form of male caregiving were strongly influenced by the labour market positions and working conditions of parents.
Masculinity, care work and the economy
The project aims to contextualise everyday gendered practices by incorporating structural conditions, thereby linking the history of everyday life and history of experience with history of structures.
The historical research field of care and masculinity is approached first from the lens of history of everyday life. Debates about “new fathers” who spent more time on childcare and caregiving than fathers of earlier generations, thereby challenging prevailing norms of masculinity, serve as the discursive backdrop. Previous historical research has concluded that paternal practices corresponding to this new model were rare. The project, however, assumes that the altered expectations nevertheless had an impact on men, their self-images, gender conceptions, and everyday practices. These effects are therefore the focus of our historical analysis.
Grandfathers, too, were often assumed to be less engaged in caring for grandchildren than grandmothers. Their caregiving practices have so far received little historical attention. Care relationships and arrangements will thus be examined in relation to the social role of grandfathers and the traces of a “new grandfatherhood.”
Family history research has highlighted the function of the family both as an institution of socialisation for future workers and as a sphere for the restoration of (male) labour power. In both sub-projects, we also ask what interactions existed between the economic sphere – in the form of overall economic development, the nature of the labour market and working conditions – and the practices of fathers and grandfathers. Historical research on bourgeois and proletarian families has also shown that talking about “masculinity” in undifferentiated terms is of little use in understanding concrete historical realities. It is therefore essential to reflect on differing class positions in the research.
sources and methods
To explore how the new demands of time-intensive and attentive fatherhood and grandfatherhood were negotiated under the condition of a low rate of part-time work among men, personal testimonies of men with children or grandchildren are particularly suitable as historical sources. For this purpose, diary entries and letters from fathers and grandfathers in the German Diary Archive in Emmendingen were examined. Experiences as fathers or grandfathers, however, appeared surprisingly rarely in these ego-documents.
The project about grandfathers therefore focused on published memoirs of grandchildren, interviews with grandparents serving as contemporary witnesses, and oral history methods. In the project about fathers, after tracing the current location of interview transcripts from various sociological studies of the 1980s, usage rights were obtained for two collections of sociological interviews. As a result, the Fatherhood Project concentrates on a historical secondary analysis of sociological interviews. For contextualisation, both projects also draw on media coverage and publications from empirical social research.
Participating researchers
- Prof. Dr Katja Patzel-Mattern (project lead)
- Hannah Schultes (doctoral candidate)
- Dr. Gina Fuhrich (post-doc researcher)
- Dr. Max Gawlich (associate researcher)
previous work
Podcast
Who Cares? Ökonomie und Sorgearbeit in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in der Bundesrepublik (winner of the Fast Forward Science 2025 Audio Award).
Contents and episodes:
- Part 1: Vom Ernährer zum Fürsorger? Ein Rückblick auf Väter in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts
- Part 2: Nichts geht ohne Oma und Opa? Großeltern als Care-Ressource in Krisenzeiten
Lectures
- Hannah Schultes: Arbeitszeitformen und väterliches Sorgehandeln in den 1980er Jahren der Bundesrepublik. Vortrag im Online-Workshop „,Alltagsväter?‘ Männliche Sorgebeziehungen in historischer Perspektive seit 1950“ der Professur für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte am Historischen Seminar der Universität Heidelberg am 21.9.2021.
- Gina Fuhrich: Unterschätzte Großväter? Zur Sorgearbeit von Großeltern im 20. Jahrhundert. Vortrag im Rahmen der Online-Vortragsreihe „Mutter, Vater, Kind? Elternschaft gestern und heute“ des Projekts „Zeit mit (Groß-)Vätern“ an der Professur für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Universität Heidelberg am 28.10.2021 (in Kooperation mit den Volkshochschulen Heidelberg und Mannheim).
- Gina Fuhrich/Hannah Schultes: Vom Ernährer zum Fürsorger? Ein historischer Blick auf Sorgearbeit von (Groß-)Vätern. Online-Vortrag im Rahmen des Equal Care Day Festivals am 29.2.2024.
Publications
- Gina Fuhrich, Katja Patzel-Mattern, Max Gawlich (Hg.) (2024): Geschichte der Sorge und Kindheit im geteilten Deutschland 1949-1989. Stuttgart: utb.
- Gina Fuhrich (2024): Das zweite Zuhause. Großelternschaft und die Sorge für Enkelkinder. In: Gina Fuhrich, Katja Patzel-Mattern, Max Gawlich (Hg.): Geschichte der Sorge und Kindheit im geteilten Deutschland 1949-1989. Stuttgart: utb, S. 87–103.
- Hannah Schultes (2024): Zwischen Einschlafritual und Fabrik. Väterliche Sorge in Arbeiterfamilien anhand soziologischer Interviews. In: Gina Fuhrich, Katja Patzel-Mattern, Max Gawlich (Hg.): Geschichte der Kindheit im geteilten Deutschland 1949-1989. Stuttgart: utb, S. 69–86. (im Erscheinen)
Blog posts
- Gina Fuhrich (2021): Väterbilder in der „Brigitte“: Die neuen Hausmänner. In: Who cares? Ein Forschungsblog des Projekts „Zeit mit (Groß-)Vätern“ zu Elternschaft im historischen Wandel, 27.2.2021.
- Hannah Schultes (2021): Väterbilder in der „Brigitte“: Kochen für die „Partnerehe“. In: Who cares? Ein Forschungsblog des Projekts „Zeit mit (Groß-)Vätern“ zu Elternschaft im historischen Wandel, 9.3.2021.
- Hannah Schultes (2021): „Es ist eine einfache Rechnung“ – Interview zu Elternschaft im Kapitalismus mit Dr. Lisa Yashodhara Haller. In: Who cares? Ein Forschungsblog des Projekts „Zeit mit (Groß-)Vätern“ zu Elternschaft im historischen Wandel, 31.7.2021.
- Gina Fuhrich (2023): Care-Reserve Großeltern: Nichts geht ohne Oma und Opa. In: Who cares? Ein Forschungsblog des Projekts „Zeit mit (Groß-)Vätern“ zu Elternschaft im historischen Wandel, 3.1.2023.
Press review
- Anica Edinger (2021): Den „neuen Vätern“ auf der Spur. Projekt am Historischen Seminar der Universität widmet sich der Rolle von Vätern und Großvätern in der Kindererziehung. In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung Nr.
- Anica Edinger (2024): Der fürsorgende Vater. Schon früh ein Leitbild, aber nicht Realität. In: Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung Nr. 103.
Events
- Online lecture series with four lectures: “Mutter, Vater, Kind? Elternschaft gestern und heute”, in cooperation with the adult education centres in Heidelberg and Mannheim, 7 October – 16 December 2021.
- Online workshop “,Alltagsväter?‘ Männliche Sorgebeziehungen in historischer Perspektive seit 1950”, 20–21 September 2021.
Bibliography
Buchanan, Ann; Rotkirch, Anna (Hg.) (2016). Grandfathers. Global perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chvojka, Erhard (2003): Geschichte der Großelternrollen vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Wien/Köln/Weimar: Böhlau.
Griebel, Winfried (1991): Aufgabenteilung in der Familie: Was übernehmen Mutter, Vater, Kind (und Großmutter)? In: Zeitschrift für Familienforschung 3(1), S. 21–53.
Hagemann, Karen; Jarausch, Konrad (Hg.) (2015): Halbtags oder Ganztags? Zeitpolitiken von Kinderbetreuung und Schule nach 1945 im europäischen Vergleich. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa.
Hagestad, Gunhild O. (2006): Transfers between grandparents and grandchildren: The importance of taking a three-generation perspective. In: Zeitschrift für Familienforschung 18(3), S. 315–332.
Kolbe, Wiebke (2006): ,Neue Väter‘ – oder was? Vaterschaft und Vaterschaftspolitik in Schweden und der Bundesrepublik seit den sechziger Jahren. In: FreiburgerFrauenStudien (18), S. 145–178.
Mattes, Monika (2008): Ambivalente Aufbrüche. Frauen, Familie und Arbeitsmarkt zwischen Konjunktur und Krise. In: Jarausch, Konrad (Hg.): Das Ende der Zuversicht? Die siebziger Jahre als Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, S. 215–228.
Neumaier, Christopher (2016): Hohe Wertschätzung, geringe Verbreitung. Der neue Vater in Westdeutschland während der 1970er und 1980er Jahre. In: Ariadne (70), S. 44–51.
Pape, Sonja (1975): Zwei Paare berichten: Wir führen eine Partnerehe. In: Brigitte (15), S. 56–59.
Rosenbaum, Heidi (1992): Proletarische Familien. Arbeiterfamilien und Arbeiterväter im frühen 20. Jahrhundert zwischen traditioneller, sozialdemokratischer und kleinbürgerlicher Orientierung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Schildt, Axel (2007): Sozialgeschichte der Bundesrepublik bis 1989/90 (Enzyklopädie deutscher Geschichte, Bd. 80), München: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag.
Schildt, Axel (2011): „Die Kräfte der Gegenreform sind auf breiter Front angetreten“. Zur konservativen Tendenzwende in den 70er Jahren. In: Axel Schildt (Hg.): Annäherungen an die Westdeutschen. Sozial- und kulturgeschichtliche Perspektiven auf die Bundesrepublik. Göttingen: Wallstein, S. 449–479.
Schlemmer, Thomas (2016): Befreiung oder Kolonialisierung? Frauenarbeit und Frauenerwerbstätigkeit am Ende der Industriemoderne. In: Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Lutz Raphael und Thomas Schlemmer (Hg.): Vorgeschichte der Gegenwart. Dimensionen des Strukturbruchs nach dem Boom. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, S. 79–108.
Schober, Pia S./Zoc, Gundula (2015): Kürzere Elternzeit von Müttern – gleichmäßigere Aufteilung der Familienarbeit? In: DIW Wochenbericht 50 (2015), S. 1190–1196.
Networking
In order to expand the field of childhood history, the “Arbeitskreis Kindheitsgeschichte” (Childhood History Working Group) was formed in 2023. Since summer 2024, it has been a working group within the Association of Historians of Germany (Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands e. V.).
Our research projects are also part of the working group, which offers valuable inspiration, especially for pre- and post-doctoral students.
