["The country has new men" : Men reconcile caregiving with profession]

Due to demographic changes and the associated consequences, men are increasingly being confronted with the challenge to reconcile caregiving and profession. Statistical data confirm that the proportion of male caregivers is continuously increasing. These men operate in a field of specifically female connotation, with which they are not too familiar. The investigation of action strategies of male caregivers has long been neglected in scientific research.

This study aimed to provide a differentiated approach to a male caregiving behavior. This part of the evaluation deals with the research question: how do working men organize their caregiving arrangements and which caregiving behavior do they exhibit?

The analysis is based on 18 biographical narrative interviews with professionally employed men with domestic caregiving duties. The interviewees were chosen by a theoretical sampling strategy and evaluated via typological processing in accordance with the qualitative content analysis.

Based on the empirical data material, a typology of the domestic caregiving work of men has been developed. The results indicate that the caregiving behavior of employed men dealing with reconciliation of caregiving and occupation is far more heterogeneous than indicated by previous studies. The extent ranges from maintenance of the previous way of life and self-distancing from the caregiving situation to a complete change in the professional and private life.