Are Men Still Selling Garden-Eggs?’: Reflections on a Study on Paternal Childcare among Teachers in Accra

Benjamin Kwansa, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana

Between 2004 and 2008 I conducted a study in Accra to explore (among other things) how teachers, who were in a form of conjugal relationship, were coping with pressures to do domestic work and childcare. This was within the context of men not being considered to be the sole providers for their families, and where many of their partners were educated and in formal, paid employment away from home, and where related female domestic helpers were scarcely available (see Kwansa 2012). This paper shows that although the men varied considerably in their roles as fathers, husbands, and kinsmen, both in associated activities and how they allocated resources and in their expectations, the gender lines with regards to sharing domestic and childcare responsibilities are more blurred that it was ten years ago. Comparatively, only a few of the teachers still held on strictly to the ‘traditional’ role stereotypes.