The Impact of Gender Roles on Motherhood and Fatherhood in India

Every family operates within a set of unwritten rules. Who cooks dinner, who earns the bread, who takes the child to school, and who stays up at night when the baby cries – these decisions often feel personal, but they are deeply shaped by cultural expectations around gender. The way society defines motherhood and fatherhood doesn’t just affect parents. It shapes careers, self-worth, emotional bonds, and even how children grow up to view the world.

What are gender roles in parenting? 🔗

Gender roles are socially constructed expectations about how men and women should behave, think, and feel. In the context of parenting, these roles create a clear but often invisible division: mothers are expected to nurture, and fathers are expected to provide. These expectations are not biological facts – they are learned behaviours passed down through families, media, religious teachings, and community norms.

From early childhood, girls are socialised to associate themselves with caregiving, domesticity, and emotional labour. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to be strong, independent, and financially ambitious. By the time they become parents, these deeply internalised beliefs shape not just what they do, but what they believe they should do.

This is not a uniquely Indian phenomenon, but the cultural reinforcement here is particularly strong. A Pew Research Center survey of nearly 30,000 adults found that while 62% of respondents said both men and women should share responsibility for caring for children, a significant 34% still believed women should be the primary caregivers. These numbers reveal a society in transition – one where progressive attitudes coexist with entrenched traditional beliefs.

Motherhood as a “sacred duty” 🔗

In many communities, motherhood is treated almost as the defining purpose of a woman’s life. Marriage is expected to lead to children, and once a woman becomes a mother, she is expected to be selfless – placing her child’s needs above her own ambitions, career, and even health. This glorification of maternal sacrifice makes it very difficult for women to prioritise anything outside the domestic sphere without facing social judgment.

The pressure begins even before childbirth. Women who delay pregnancy or choose to remain childfree face relentless questioning from relatives, neighbours, and sometimes even medical professionals. Research from the Smile Foundation notes that the expectation of marriage naturally leading to motherhood remains deeply embedded across most cultural contexts, and women who resist this path often face family friction and social stigma.

This cultural glorification of motherhood creates a double bind. On one hand, it places immense value on a woman’s reproductive role. On the other, it reduces her identity to that single role. A woman who is a brilliant engineer, a talented artist, or an ambitious entrepreneur is still primarily judged on whether she is a “good mother.” This internalised belief – that mothering is her most important contribution – often leads women to step back from professional growth voluntarily, without recognising the systemic pressures pushing them toward that choice.

The motherhood penalty in the workplace 🔗

The consequences of gendered parenting expectations extend well beyond the home. When women become mothers, they face what researchers call the “motherhood penalty” – a measurable decline in career prospects, wages, and hiring opportunities.

A World Bank study on urban India found that despite rising education levels and declining fertility rates, female labour force participation has remained persistently low. The study concluded that having a young child in the household significantly reduces urban mothers’ likelihood of being employed, and this effect has intensified over time.

The numbers paint a stark picture. Research published by IISPPR found that only about 11% of mothers with infants held formal salaried positions, and nearly half of women who returned from maternity leave exited the workforce within four months. A separate study reported a 22% decline in interview callbacks for women in the 25-35 age bracket – the prime childbearing years – particularly in urban service sectors like IT, banking, and education.

Meanwhile, men often experience the opposite. A 2018 International Labour Organisation report found that men were more likely to receive salary hikes and promotions after becoming fathers, as fatherhood was perceived as a sign of increased stability and responsibility. This contrast – where motherhood is treated as a professional liability and fatherhood as a professional asset – reveals just how deeply gender bias operates in workplace culture.

How gender roles limit fathers 🔗

While discussions about gendered parenting often focus on women, it is equally important to recognise how rigid gender roles constrain men. The traditional expectation that a father’s primary responsibility is to earn money and provide financial security leaves little room for emotional engagement with children.

Many fathers want to be more involved in their children’s daily lives – changing diapers, attending school events, or simply being present during bedtime routines. But societal norms discourage this. As noted by Feminism in India, a father who takes care of children in the absence of a mother is often met with sympathy rather than respect, as if he is doing something unusual or heroic for performing basic parenting tasks. No one asks a mother whether her child is “doing fine” without the father, but the reverse question is common.

This cultural framing hurts fathers in several ways. It denies them the emotional closeness that comes with active caregiving. It reinforces the idea that nurturing is a feminine trait, making men feel awkward or inadequate when they try to be more involved. And it creates a cycle where children grow up without seeing their fathers as emotional caregivers, perpetuating the same gender divide into the next generation.

The paternity leave gap 🔗

One of the clearest institutional reflections of this gender bias is the stark difference between maternity and paternity leave policies. The Maternity Benefit Act provides 26 weeks of paid leave for women in the formal sector. In contrast, paternity leave for central government employees is limited to just 15 days, and there is no national law mandating any paternity leave in the private sector at all.

This policy gap sends a clear message: childcare is primarily a mother’s job. When fathers are given only two weeks to adjust to a life-changing event, the system effectively tells them to get back to work and leave the caregiving to their partners. The Supreme Court has recently urged the Union Government to create a legal framework recognising paternity leave as a social security benefit, observing that the absence of such a policy reinforces traditional gender roles and limits fathers’ participation in early childcare.

Some progressive companies are beginning to challenge this norm. Zomato introduced 26 weeks of paid parental leave regardless of gender. Meesho offers 30 weeks of gender-neutral parental leave. But these remain exceptions rather than the rule. Until paternity leave becomes a legal standard across all sectors, the structural incentive for fathers to stay disengaged from caregiving will persist.

The impact on children and families 🔗

Gender roles in parenting do not just affect parents – they shape the emotional and psychological development of children. When children see their mothers handling all domestic and caregiving responsibilities while fathers focus exclusively on earning, they absorb these roles as natural and inevitable. This early socialisation creates the foundation for the next generation’s gender attitudes.

Research consistently shows that children benefit when fathers are actively involved in their upbringing – not just financially, but emotionally and physically. Active fatherhood contributes to stronger emotional security, better cognitive development, and more gender-equal attitudes in children. When children see both parents sharing household tasks and childcare, they develop a broader understanding of what men and women are capable of.

Conversely, when fathers are emotionally absent due to cultural expectations, children may grow up associating masculinity with distance and authority rather than warmth and care. This can perpetuate emotional repression among boys and reinforce dependence among girls, creating a cycle that is difficult to break.

Regional and religious variations 🔗

It would be inaccurate to treat India as a monolithic culture when it comes to gender roles. Attitudes toward parenting vary significantly across regions, religions, and education levels. Pew Research data shows that Sikhs and Buddhists are more likely to support an equal distribution of family responsibilities, while Muslims tend to hold more traditional views. For instance, 80% of Sikhs said both men and women should earn money in a family, compared to 37% of Muslims.

Geography matters too. States like Kerala tend to be less traditional in their gender attitudes, while states like Karnataka lean more conservative on questions about parenting roles. Education is another major factor – college graduates are significantly more likely to support equal inheritance rights and shared caregiving responsibilities than those without higher education.

These variations suggest that changing gender norms is not a uniform process. What works in an urban, educated household in Bengaluru may not apply to a rural family in Bihar. Effective change requires context-sensitive approaches that respect local realities while gradually expanding the boundaries of what is considered acceptable for mothers and fathers.

Moving toward shared parenting 🔗

Breaking free from rigid gender roles in parenting is not about diminishing the importance of motherhood or forcing fathers into roles they are uncomfortable with. It is about creating a society where both parents have genuine choices – where a mother can pursue her career without guilt, and a father can take an active role in childcare without ridicule.

Policy-level changes 🔗

Legislation plays a critical role. A comprehensive paternity leave law applicable to all sectors – not just the central government – would be an important first step. Cost-sharing frameworks, where the state partially reimburses employers for parental leave costs, can reduce the hiring bias against women of childbearing age. Expanding affordable childcare infrastructure, particularly through community-based crèches under programmes like the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), can ease the burden on mothers and enable their continued workforce participation.

Workplace culture shifts 🔗

Companies need to go beyond compliance. Performance evaluations should be designed to ensure that motherhood is not penalised and fatherhood is not disproportionately rewarded. Flexible work arrangements, structured return-to-work programmes, and normalising paternity leave uptake – especially among senior leaders – can signal that caregiving is a shared responsibility, not a career liability.

Challenging norms at home 🔗

Perhaps the most important shift needs to happen within families. Parents who model shared responsibilities – where cooking, cleaning, school runs, and emotional labour are distributed equitably – raise children who question rather than accept rigid gender roles. Open conversations between spouses about expectations, aspirations, and difficulties can build more cooperative partnerships. Schools and communities also have a role to play in teaching children that a person’s gender does not define their capabilities or responsibilities.

The bigger picture 🔗

The way a society defines motherhood and fatherhood reflects its deeper beliefs about gender, power, and purpose. When motherhood is treated as a woman’s destiny and fatherhood as an economic function, both parents lose – mothers lose professional opportunities and personal freedom, and fathers lose emotional connection with their children. The family, far from being a purely private space, becomes a site where inequality is reproduced across generations.

India sits at an interesting crossroads. On one hand, the Axis Bank study on women’s workforce participation notes that most women now view paid work as a career and part of their identity, aiming to build lives around both career and family. On the other hand, structural barriers – from inadequate childcare to absent paternity leave laws to persistent workplace discrimination – continue to punish women for becoming mothers and excuse men from caregiving.

Bridging this gap requires action at every level: individual households, workplaces, communities, and the state. The goal is not to erase the differences between mothers and fathers, but to ensure that those differences are chosen freely rather than imposed by outdated cultural scripts.

What do you think? How have traditional expectations shaped the way you see motherhood and fatherhood – and do you think workplaces and families are doing enough to support more balanced parenting roles?

References

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/how-indians-view-gender-roles-in-families-and-society/
2. https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/blog/motherhood-in-india-many-faces/
3. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/417411489495483028/txt/WPS8004.txt
4. https://iisppr.org.in/impact-of-the-maternity-benefit-amendment-act-2017-on-womens-workforce-participation-in-india-2014-2024/
5. https://www.policycircle.org/opinion/parenthood-effect-on-gender-gap/
6. https://feminisminindia.com/2021/04/01/becoming-a-father-equal-parenting-on-board/
7. https://www.changeincontent.com/paternity-leave-in-india-equal-parenting-law/
8. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/gender-roles-in-the-family/
9. https://smestreet.in/banking/axis-bank-survey-tracks-women-career-and-work-participation-11190811