The current take-up of shared parental leave (SPL) is fairly low, and critics state that the legislation is unlikely to fulfill its ambitions of encouraging greater equality at work and at home. This is because of a lack of sufficient incentives for dads to take time out.
Even proponents believe it will be a slow burner, and there are concerns that allowing grandparents to share it could make it less likely that dads will take it - or alternatively encourage parents to hurry back to work.
What is noteworthy is that interest in it, if the polls are to be believed, is much higher than take-up. The legislation has opened up a debate about the relative absence of dads in the whole childcare/work life balance discussion despite many surveys showing they are keen to have more time with their families. Recent research from Working Families shows younger dads are even more keen than their middle aged counterparts.
SPL has provided an opportunity for gender equality activists, from the Women’s Equality Party to Fawcett Society and the new WorkCareShare network of mums and dads, to talk about how men and women handle caring responsibilities and work.
The Fawcett Society’s Sex Equality 2016 survey of over 8,000 men and women is a case in point. The survey found 86% of men wanted equal opportunities for the women in their lives, compared to 81% of women wanting it for themselves.
On the employer front, SPL has proved a catalyst for action among the most progressive organisations. Employers such as Centrica started to collect more data on employees who are dads. They had a lot of information on working mums because of support provided for maternity leave, concerns about retention post-maternity leave and women’s networks set up to enable women’s career progression. But all of this is related to the traditional role of women as the primary carer of children. Meanwhile they had very little, if any, information on dads and what they wanted.
Yet over the last decade or two there have been huge changes in our working lives. The number of women who work after having children has risen significantly, and a growing number of these work full time. The number of women who are the main breadwinner in their families has also increased.
This - and other movements towards greater equality - have brought a renewed focus on issues of equality in the workplace - debates about the glass ceiling, the gender pay gap, leaning in, leaning out and everything in between.
Women have been talking about these issues for years, mainly to themselves. But gender equality is not just about women. Poll after poll shows that dads want to spend more time with their families, but they face a range of challenges, from financial ones to difficulties in challenging stereotypes around flexible working.
A combination of peer pressure, employer pressure and social expectations allied with outdated ideas that flexible workers are less committed and have effectively abandoned career progression can make it hard to negotiate for a work pattern outside the standard full time model. How do we make flexible working - particularly reduced hours - attractive to dads who in addition to peer pressure, worry about being sidelined if they go part time? They face the same fears women have dealt with for years. Is it enough to argue that the stigma will only be lifted if more dads get on board? What’s in it for men besides greater equality?
Alasdair Sprott works flexi hours at Lloyds Bank so he can look after his eldest daughter Charlie who has learning difficulties. The flexibility he has has made him more committed to his employer, but the benefits have been much broader than that. “There can definitely be tensions if the dads are not on board or engaged or if they are in denial about their child’s learning difficulties,” he says.
He adds: “In our case both my wife and I know what is happening and my wife does not feel she is on her own. I feel closer to my children. I can communicate better with Charlie because I am around doing things with her. She definitely feels better that I am around.”
One problem is that there’s not much research - beyond the anecdotal - on the wider benefits that might accrue through greater equality. Naturally these have knock-on effects on the workplace, where there is already quite a good business case for greater diversity.
SPL recognises that childcare and flexible working is about families, not just working mums. Early years tends to grab the lion’s share of policy attention and SPL only focuses on those first months. The idea is that sharing care at this point entrenches a more equal approach to parenting from the outset. But the long-term issues of how care is divided and how employers can make it easier for parents to choose how they divide care must now be discussed.
Mandy Garner is web editor of job and community site www.workingmums.co.uk
