Gender Regimes and the Perceived Costs of Children: Does Gender Equality Favor Happier Parents?

Scholars disagree on whether rising gender equality undermines family life (by eroding the traditional specialization of roles) or, conversely, renews it once men’s involvement in unpaid care catches up with women’s employment. Building on the ‘two-stage gender revolution’ perspective, this article distinguishes equality in the public sphere from equality in the domestic sphere and asks how different combinations of the two relate to perceived costs of parenthood. A hierarchical cluster analysis yields three regimes: ‘symmetric roles’ (Nordic countries), ‘women second shift’ (France, Belgium, Portugal, Austria), and ‘traditional arrangements’ (Ireland, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Netherlands). I then relate regimes to items capturing the perceived costs of parenthood (financial burden, loss of freedom, career limits). Results show a clear inverted-U relationship: among cohabiting parents, perceived costs are highest in the women second shift regime, while both the symmetric and traditional regimes exhibit lower perceived costs. The findings update earlier evidence linking equality to family pessimism by showing that where the second gender revolution (shared care) has advanced, parents report lower perceived constraints associated with having children, whereas stalled domestic change amplifies perceived costs.