Father

• This research, based on an analysis of over 6 million feedings and 4 million nappy changes, uncovers surprising insights into the actual role of dads in early childcare.
• However, this involvement decreased to 22.95% for children under 3 months, suggesting a decline in paternal engagement as the child grows.
• On the nappy-changing front, dads were involved in just 19.35% of the instances in the first year.
• Are modern dads as involved as we think, or are they merely scratching the surface of their potential in childcare?

• An even more striking difference is the “motherhood pay gap” that happens when women have children.
• Also known as the “family gap” or child penalties, women’s earnings plummet after the birth of a child, while men’s barely budge.
• Children have a negative effect on women’s productivity in the labour market by substantially reducing their human capital, which translates into a significant decrease in their earnings.

The effects of parenthood

• We used data from Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal and International Study of Adults coupled with historical administrative records from 1982 to 2018.
• We observed large and persistent negative effects of parenthood for mothers, but not fathers.
• Mothers’ earnings decrease by 49 per cent the year of birth, with a penalty of 34.3 per cent 10 years after.

Unequal effects of children

• The birth of children results in large earnings losses that are not equally distributed within heterosexual couples.
• This is especially true for mothers of multiple children or those with a lower education level.

Equal pay for equal work

• We investigated the role of family policies, since they were in part designed to encourage maternal employment and promote more equal sharing of parenting responsibilities between partners.
• “Equal pay for equal work” policies, such as the federal government’s Pay Equity Act, also have the potential to make a substantial difference.

More benefits down the line

• A recent study using data from 29 countries showed that employed mothers were more likely to transmit egalitarian values to their children both at work and at home.
• Girls with employed mothers ended up working more themselves: they worked more hours, were better paid and held supervisory positions more often than girls with stay-at-home mothers.

• However, boys who grew up with employed mothers were more involved in family and domestic responsibilities as adults than men whose mothers were not in the labour market.
• Working mothers appear to have an intergenerational impact favouring gender equality, both within the family and in the labour market.
• Knowing how these costs are shared among the two parents is key to enable better decision making, for policymakers, but ultimately, for parents, future parents and their children.

• Marie Connolly received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture and CIRANO.
• Catherine Haeck received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture and CIRANO.

• The injunction would bar officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Surgeon General’s office from coercing or significantly encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech.
• In September, a Fifth Circuit panel upheld the key components of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction order, prohibiting named federal officials from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to suppress legal speech.
• Though the U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily stayed the Fifth Circuit’s injunction, NCLA believes the Justices are ultimately unlikely to permit the egregious First Amendment abridgements this case has exposed.
• In fact, much of the speech the government suppressed in this case—about Covid-19 and Hunter Biden’s laptop—was truthful.”
  — Mark Chenoweth, President and Chief Legal Officer, NCLA

• Despite his clear talent, Monk continuously faces rejection for his latest novel.
• It’s never explicitly said but it’s made pretty clear that his book is just not “black enough”.
• Authors from historically marginalised communities, including black authors, repeatedly encounter obstacles to getting their work published, receiving post-publication support, or securing a safe platform that allows their voices to be heard.

The struggle for authentic representation

• Monk considers the book as pandering “black poverty porn” and its success drives him to the edge.
• In one scene, Monk asks a bookseller why his books are being stocked in the African-American Studies section as they’re “just literature”.
• When he takes his books to sit among the general fiction, he’s confronted with a large display of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto.
• It reflects an idea of blackness and black experience that publishers are all too happy to buy into.

Commercial success vs. authenticity

• It’s his answer to the absurdity of the publishing industry, replete with almost every black stereotype he could think of, including gangs, absent fathers, guns and drugs.
• To Monk (and initially his agent) this is an unsellable book that obviously calls out the racism inherent in the success of such books like Sintara Golden’s.
• To his complete bewilderment, however, he’s offered a $750,000 advance from a publisher who had passed on his other work.
• In the midst of all this, Monk is asked to be the diversity inclusion to judge a prestigious literary award.
• The conversation between the two touches on the complex issues surrounding authenticity, commercialisation, “selling out” and the definition of meaningful representation.

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Ellis Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.