The Male Au Pair: "Doing Masculinity" by Performing Housework and Providing Childcare

Abstract

Male au pairs responding to the "call for more men" in private and professional childcare have gained some popularity in recent years. Au pairs, both male and female, are positioned in hybrid work settings in that they not only perform housework and provide childcare, but living with families also assume roles of family members. Drawing on the concept of "doing gender", the article compares how the position of male and female au pairs is constructed by allocating specific duties to them, and how men's suitability for au pairing is legitimized. It is shown that, because a gendered division of family work continues to be the prerequisite for "doing gender", male au pairs perform only housework that is compatible with hegemonic masculinity, and that this is inherent in their main duty of functioning as male role models to aid in the socialization of the families' children when the children's fathers fail to fulfill this role.