Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how unemployment shapes childcare practices in the North of Montenegro. While parents' joblessness can create financial vulnerability and affect emotional climate in the family, it may also foster reshuffling of the traditional parental roles.

Paper long abstract:

Since the breakup of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 90's, Montenegro has been experiencing high unemployment rates, especially in the northern part of the country. Besides, more women than men are without a formal job. The data from my ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2017-2018 suggest that families in the north of Montenegro consider financial insecurity and unemployment as the main challenge to their family life.

While unemployment in Montenegro has a significant effect on people's childcare practices, families have different strategies of dealing with the father's or mother's joblessness. On the one hand, the mother's formal unemployment is normalized because of the traditional gender roles. Historically, childcare was seen as solely the woman's responsibility. Therefore, in the case of formal unemployment, the woman continues her traditional role as a childcarer and household manager.

The father's unemployment, on the other hand, can place the man and family in a vulnerable position. Nowadays masculinity is centered around economic prosperity. Therefore, inability to be a breadwinner for the family not only creates financial insecurity, but also endangers the man's masculinity. At the same time, my ethnographic data suggest that the father's unemployment may also open up a new gender repertoire and foster more active and equal participation in childcare, creating an emotional bond between father and pre-school children. I argue that the father's unemployment and the lack of financial resources are translated into access to greater time resources that can be redirected to foster more meaningful involvement in childcare.