Let’s Talk About Men and Babies!
Why parental leave for fathers is a women’s rights issue
The verdict is in: women can’t have it all. But why is the narrative focused on having it all, when it should be focused on sharing — especially with regard to childcare responsibilities. More needs to be done at the level of personal life and public policy to promote gender equality.
The gender wage gap widens noticeably around the time women have children. Solutions have typically focused on how workplaces can support women, when the question should really be about how to equalize childcare responsibilities. It is only by involving all parents in childcare that we can shift gender dynamics in society and address harmful stereotypes that assume that the majority of childcare and housework will be performed by women.
While maternity leave protections and workplace accommodations for mothers are not things we should stop talking about, we need to change the parental narrative to an inclusive one — regardless of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or whether someone is a birth or adoptive parent. And let’s not forget single parents, and the support that they need, such as affordable childcare, which is generally beneficial to all parents.
In heterosexual couples, caring for a baby is often the beginning of an unequal partnership, reinforcing any discriminatory cracks which have started to form. Entrusting one parent over another to care for the needs of a newborn sets in motion a system which often continues throughout a child’s life. To change long standing assumptions about family life, we need to start by increasing the involvement of fathers early on. Studies have shown that fathers who take longer leave when their child is born are more involved in childcare throughout their child’s life.
In Sweden, one of the most progressive countries on this issue, parents are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave between them when their child is born or adopted. Each parent has 90 days reserved exclusively for them and should they decide not to take these, they can’t be transferred to the other parent. Shared parental leave policies, with a “use it or lose it” provision like this, have dramatically shifted and equalized caregiving responsibilities in the few countries that provide them, like Sweden, Finland and Norway. In Sweden, this legislation has also contributed to it having the highest rate of labour force participation in the OECD, for the simple reason that if both parents share childcare responsibilities, then both parents can participate in the labour force.
And it’s not only these “typically progressive” Scandinavian countries that are driving change. Canada has a relatively generous parental leave policy too. New parents are entitled to up to 55% of their average weekly earnings for a maximum of 40 weeks, which can be shared between both parents. Some provinces in Canada, like Quebec and Ontario, also offer additional benefits to further enhance the national policy.
Other countries in Europe, including Portugal, France and Germany, have also made significant improvements to their parental leave policies. A study in Germany found that the introduction of a “use it or lose it” policy for new fathers resulted in changed attitudes towards gender roles in the grandparents’ generation. Grandparents whose grandchildren were born after the reform, and whose sons took time off, were less likely to agree with the statement “Women should be more concerned about their family than about their career”.
Despite such evidence, the formal protections and policies needed to encourage men to take time off are lacking. There is no International Labour Organization standard for paternity leave, and while some national laws provide for it, it’s still woefully inadequate. The average length in national legislation for paternity leave is just 7 days.
In countries that provide gender-neutral “parental” leave, technically available to either parent, research has found that it’s still taken up largely by women. Men have claimed to fear backlash and discrimination for taking parental leave, and many, as a result, have been unwilling to utilize the benefit when offered on paper — a vicious cycle which leads to the perpetuation of harmful gender stereotypes. Additionally, these longer parental leaves, if taken exclusively by women and not shared, have been shown to further weaken the standing of women in the labour market and the division of labour in the family and home.
This is why some countries have introduced the “use it or lose it” provision, allocating a defined portion of the parental leave as non-transferable, rather than providing it all as a shared entitlement. In terms of overall duration of this shared entitlement, Scandinavian countries provide the most generous paid entitlements: Sweden (480 days), Finland (320 days), Denmark (52 weeks), Norway (49 weeks at 100% coverage, 59 at 80%), with other countries outside of Scandinavia also introducing significantly better policies in recent years: Canada (40 weeks), Portugal (120 days), France (112 days).
Providing cover (split between parents, where there are two) for roughly a year makes sense when one considers the research on the negative effects of sending children to daycare in the first 12 months. If the benchmark goal is to get to 12 months, having one parent out of the workforce for that long (particularly when it happens more than once) can derail certain career paths, but when shared, achieving this benchmark of parental care becomes much more manageable.
Increasingly, some international organizations and global companies are also applying their parental leave policies to all staff, regardless of national context. The United Nations, for example, recently announced changes to its parental leave policy, giving all parents, regardless of gender and including adoptive parents, 16 weeks of paid time off, with an additional 10 weeks off for gestational mothers in recognition of the physical recovery time needed. Volvo also introduced a policy in 2021 offering 24 weeks of paid parental leave to all employees across its global operations. In Australia, where the nationally legislated entitlement for fathers is only two weeks, a policy like this one is lauded as a major benefit and was largely responsible for Volvo Australia being rated as one of the country’s best places to work.
Companies and countries that have taken active policy steps to equalize caregiving responsibilities have done so both because they recognize how important these measures are for achieving gender equality, but also because they recognize that these policies are good for business. They help recruit talent, retain that talent, and create a positive work culture.
Drawing on examples from across the world, parental leave policies should ideally be enacted at the national level to force systemic change, should be gender-neutral, available to all parents when a child is born or adopted, and should be without regard to parents’ sexual orientation and gender identity. Such policies should be a shared entitlement (ideally a year), but with a substantial non-transferable quota for each parent (90 days or more each), and should be paid at close to regular wages.
Instead of asking whether it’s possible for women to have it all, we should be looking for ways to equalize the burdens of work life and home life. Paternity and parental leave for fathers is a women’s rights issue because the increased involvement of fathers in childcare has a direct impact on how women are treated and perceived in the workplace and society. It’s time to stop treating childcare as solely a women’s responsibility, and push for policy change and adaptations in practice — in our workplaces, within our countries, and internationally.
