"The project is the first comprehensive study to assess contemporary parenting norms and practices and their diffusion. The project develops a comparative framework to study prevalent motherhood and fatherhood norms, images, identities and behaviour in current societies. The project will focus on how parenting roles are constructed by professionals, welfare states, and popular media, and will assess how cultural and institutional norms and images are perceived and realized by expecting and new parents.In 4 subprojects this study investigates 1) How standards of 'good' mothering and fathering are perceived, shaped and disseminated by professionals (gynaecologists, midwives, family councils); 2) How welfare states, labour markets and family policies target at mothers and fathers roles as earners and care givers, and how this has changed in recent decades; 3) How images of mothers and fathers roles have been portrayed in print media from 1980 until 2010; 4) How (expecting) mothers and fathers perceive, embody and represent parenting norms and images in their own work and family roles; 5) How new parents divide paid and unpaid work and how these divisions shape career patterns over the life course; 6) How these patterns differ cross-nationally. The international collaboration includes Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Poland.The aim of this project is to develop a contemporary sociology of adult sex roles and parenting norms: A theory of the social creation of parenting norms and a comprehensive framework to study empirically the change of men's and women's roles, identities and practices as earners and care givers in the early phase of family formation.By combining expert interviews, policy analysis and content analysis of print media with analyses of qualitative and quantitative data on (nascent) parents, the project will address the diverse layers associated with changing gender roles and parenting norms over the adult life course."