Promoting involved fatherhood? Canadian institutions and the journey towards a more gender-equal Canada

Through the examples of public parental-leave policies, such as the federal Employment Insurance’s parental and father benefits and Quebec Parental Insurance Plan, and public campaigns, such as the 2022 Public Health Agency of Canada’s ‘Positive Father Involvement’ (PFI) campaign, developed by federal and provincial governments, this article analyses the way the Canadian government has encouraged fathers to embrace a more caring dimension of masculinity and fatherhood. By creating a normative context which helps to foster caring fathers and by breaking the overidentification of women with care, these institutional measures aim at bringing more gender equality both at home but also on the labour market.