Nicola Brewer, chief executive of Equality and Human Rights Commission, has called for fathers to have the right to more paid paternity leave to end the present “unequal sharing of caring” that is penalising women in the workplace and marginalising the role of fathers.
Fathers in Britain currently have the most unequal rights in Europe, entitled to take only two weeks’ paternity leave, compared to one year for mothers. This imbalance, says Brewer, creates an “unequal sharing of caring” and a generation of what she calls ‘salt and pepper’ fathers by which she means “fathers who are seen as good seasoning for a family but not essential for parenting.”
Paradoxically, she believes that increased entitlement to paid maternity leave – up from six months to nine months from April 2007 and set to be extended to one year paid from 2010 – has actually been detrimental to women, as it has entrenched employers’ attitudes that while fathers continue to go out to work, it is mothers who have to pay the career ‘penalty’ for having children.
“The increasing leave entitlement for women seems hard to argue against,” she said, “but I think it presents us with an inconvenient truth. Has public policy on maternity leave made too many assumptions about the choices families will make, and as a result entrenched the stereotype that it is women who do the caring?”
Her comments were supported by Conservative equality spokeswoman Theresa May. “We know that fathers want the opportunity to have more of a role in bringing up their children and … there is a real danger that a huge disparity in maternity and paternity leave could have a negative effect on women’s employment.”
But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber was critical of Brewer’s comments. “The idea that extending family-friendly rights would somehow hurt women’s job prospects is a myth commonly peddled by employers who don’t want to employ women of child-bearing age or give male staff time off to spend with their children.
“The best way to end any misinterpretation of these rights would be to extend flexible working rights, including paid parental leave, to everyone.”
One solution that Nicola Brewer proposes is for more flexible paid parental leave that can be shared by mothers and fathers depending on their family circumstances. “Shouldn’t dads at least have the right to some paternity leave paid at 90% of their salary?” she asks.
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: “[We] have plans to further increase leave and pay for new fathers and to allow them to share leave with mothers if they want to return to work.
“We are also extending the right to request flexible working to all parents of children under 16.”
But Duncan Fisher, chief executive of think-tank the Fathers Institute, is critical of the new legislation saying that it would be “completely useless” to allow fathers to share the second six months of maternity leave unless they were given more support and better incentives to take time off work.
Fisher said that there was overwhelming evidence that men and women both wanted fathers to be more involved with childcare. Yet despite that, women continued to take the lead role because it did not make financial sense for men to take the time off work.
Patricia Hewitt, former Minister for Women and Equality, said the government needed to do more to make it “acceptable and normal” for fathers to take time off or change their working habits to look after their children.
“There’s a growing minority of parents in this new generation who want to share the care of their children . . . but that will require a culture change in the workplace,” she said.
Cat Banyard, campaign officer for women’s equality group the Fawcett Society, was critical of giving women the right to transfer some or all of the second six months of maternity leave to the father.
She said that it “sends a powerful message that the first port of call in all cases is the mother”. Instead, she is calling on the Government to rename maternity and paternity leave as “parental leave” and ensure that mothers and fathers get at least the minimum wage when off work looking after their children.
Indeed, so low is the rate of paid paternity at the moment – just £117.18 – that most new fathers don’t take up their right to extra time with their new-born children, opting to take annual leave rather than face a pay cut at such a crucial time.
Fisher said a solution may be to let fathers take their paid parental leave from the second year of their child’s life until their fifth birthday. “You have to be pragmatic,” he said. “At the moment, the more you pay maternity leave, the more the mother will take it and the men won’t.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/15/equality.gender
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article4333843.ece