The politics of paternity leave

[Marx]

BBC News - The politics of paternity leave




The prime minister has put work on hold to be with his new daughter, but many new fathers can't afford the statutory time off. Is modern Britain coping with fatherhood?

It is those precious early moments with a new child that so many fathers treasure. A time to bond with their offspring and offer invaluable assistance to the mother.

After welcoming new daughter Florence into the world, Prime Minister Dave Cameron is taking his statutory paternity leave to be with his wife Samantha.

But it is an experience that not all of his fellow fathers feel they can justify sharing. Thanks to decades of shifting attitudes, their reluctance is not based chiefly on chauvinism or a belief that childcare is woman's work. The problem, instead, is money.

Some 45% of new fathers said they did not take paternity leave, according to a 2009 report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Of those, 88% said they would have like to have done so and 49% said they could not afford it.

As it stands, new fathers with long enough service are entitled to £124.88 a week or 90% of their average weekly wage if that is lower. Assuming a 40-hour working week, it is a figure that comes in well below the minimum wage.

Fathers can take an additional 13 weeks off, unpaid, before the child turns five and, from April 2011, new mothers will be able to transfer the second half of their year-long maternity leave to the father. But this too will be unpaid, thus, again, of little help to those without the necessary savings.

For many families, the situation reinforces the traditional norm that the father is the breadwinner and the mother the homemaker.

And yet this comes at a time when public attitudes appear to reject such gender roles. The EHRC study found that only 29% believed childcare was the mother's primary role.

The imbalance raises the question of what exactly paternity leave - and, indeed, modern fatherhood - is actually for.

Lancaster University's Dr Caroline Gatrell, an expert in work-life balance, says much of the pressure stems from competing - and contradictory - social pressures on modern men.

One the one hand, she believes, they are, unlike their own forebears, expected to live up to the idealised template of the "co-parent" or "flexible father" Be the perfect modern father who takes an equal role in childcare and spends plenty of quality time with his children.

On the other hand, however, she says the same men are very often in workplaces based on long-hours cultures, where asking for flexible working arrangements is frowned upon.

"There's this huge disparity between what is supposed to be put in place and what actually happens," she says.

"The way we do parenting has changed, but the rules haven't caught up. Men want to be hands-on parents, but among employers and those who make the rules there's an underlying expectation that women are the ones who take responsibility for parenting."

Dr Gatrell's depiction of men grappling with the ideal of having it all may provoke an ironic laugh from feminists. But she says this situation hardly benefits women either, and undermines many good intentions.

The father's paternity leave ends just as acquaintances' interest in the novelty of the new arrival wears off, meaning the mother is left alone. When the working father comes home for his "quality time" with the children, the mother is left to do the housework.

So what can be done to match wider expectations of co-parenting with reality - if at all?

Rob Williams, chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute, a think tank which lobbies for changes in the law to allow men more time with their children, believes the UK needs to restructure its system along the lines of Scandinavian countries, where paid time off can be shared among both parents.

"Modern British families have come a long way. According to some studies, fathers spend 800% more time with their children than they did in the early 1970s," he says.

"But among those who make the rules, there's still the assumption that father is a useful helper, but his real role is to be the breadwinner."

However, what might be good for families' work-life balance may not be welcomed quite so fulsomely by their bosses. Employers warn of the extra burden they would face.

Commenting on the April 2011 changes when they were announced in January, Katja Hall of the CBI said British businesses did their best to support flexible working and recognised the need for greater gender equality in childcare responsibilities. But also warned the government needed to be careful not to impose a "bureaucratic tangle".

Damion Queva, owner and publisher of the "dad's mag" FQ Magazine, says he can see both sides of the argument - both as an advocate of greater recognition for fathers and as an employer.

"There are a lot of very good businesses that already allow paternity leave beyond the statutory minimum, they recognise that a happy employee with a good work-life balance will be a loyal employee," he says.

"At the same time, I think it's reasonable for workers to give plenty of notice, clear their desks before they go off, maybe come in a bit earlier and leave a bit later before their leave starts.

"Times have changed and so have our priorities. But that applies to employers as well as their employees."

Could this be the birth of a new era? In between changing nappies, two weeks will give David Cameron plenty of time to reflect.

[Celtic Druid]

The imbalance raises the question of what exactly paternity leave - and, indeed, modern fatherhood - is actually for.

Lancaster University's Dr Caroline Gatrell, an expert in work-life balance, says much of the pressure stems from competing - and contradictory - social pressures on modern men.

One the one hand, she believes, they are, unlike their own forebears, expected to live up to the idealised template of the "co-parent" or "flexible father" Be the perfect modern father who takes an equal role in childcare and spends plenty of quality time with his children.

On the other hand, however, she says the same men are very often in workplaces based on long-hours cultures, where asking for flexible working arrangements is frowned upon.

Wow, some common sense emanating from the corrupted halls of academia.

"There's this huge disparity between what is supposed to be put in place and what actually happens," she says.So what can be done to match wider expectations of co-parenting with reality - if at all?

Leave feminism out of the equation for starters.

"There's this huge disparity between what is supposed to be put in place and what actually happens," she says.So what can be done to match wider expectations of co-parenting with reality - if at all?Commenting on the April 2011 changes when they were announced in January, Katja Hall of the CBI said British businesses did their best to support flexible working and recognised the need for greater gender equality in childcare responsibilities. But also warned the government needed to be careful not to impose a "bureaucratic tangle".

Women are the only group that is afforded 'flexible working' and it's typical how terminology such as a "bureaucratic tangle" is only used to describe the pittance of paternity leave afforded to fathers.

[haute macabre]

I think it would benefit society as a whole if fathers had paid paternity leave. With the way the economy is, I highly doubt many fathers took paternity leave or only did it for a shorter time.

Fathers need to make that bond with their kids as much as mothers need to.

Kids do better in life, when both parents are present and active in their lives. Fathers are more important than ever. Many are being denied their rights as fathers, under the feminist regime.

If I had a kid, I'd want to be able to share that moment and time with my husband. Not only to bond as a family but to celebrate a new chapter in our lives. Family begins at home and that is why we need both parents to have paid parental leave.

[senach]

It is only father's from the non productive part of society that can realistically take time off,those in the private sector know that it will be held against them if they leave their firm's in the shit.
The state come's out with stupid idea's and the private sector pay's for it.

[paul parmenter]

It is only father's from the non productive part of society that can realistically take time off,those in the private sector know that it will be held against them if they leave their firm's in the shit.
The state come's out with stupid idea's and the private sector pay's for it.

That's the problem. Employers are struggling already by having to allow the female half of the workforce enormous amounts of time off while paying for their absence and paying again for somebody else to do the job from which those women are absent. If they had to shoulder the same burden in respect of the male half of the workforce, they know their businesses are likely to collapse. There is a recession going on too, or hasn't anyone noticed? And there just might be a connection between the two...

Blaming employers for not giving fathers more options to impose equally onerous costs on their businesses is pointless and stupid. They simply can't afford it. The real problem is giving women such ridiculous and expensive advantages in the first place. Businesses are supposed to be about producing goods and services that people want to buy, and that allows those businesses to make money by being as efficient as possible. But once you insist on turning them into the means for women to live the lifestyle of their choice while getting paid for making no contribution whatsoever to the business, you are on the road to ruin. The insanity is constantly being justified by claims that allowing people (i.e. women) a "work-life balance" is in the best interests of the employer. Not when that work-life balance consists of paying them for not working, it isn't.

Businesses cannot afford to operate like the state - they do not have a bottomless barrel of other people's money to squander on social projects that make endless attempts to satisfy the half of the population that it is impossible to satisfy. Agitating for them to extend such largesse to the other half of the population is a luxury none of us can afford. No wonder western economies are going down the tube.