Pregnancy, maternity – but what about Dads?

New research has revealed that many fathers to not feel supported in the workplace to care for their children. How does your practice shape up?

New research has revealed that many fathers to not feel supported in the workplace to care for their children. Some new fathers, for example, want to downshift into a less stressful job because they cannot balance the demands of work and family life. Twice the number of fathers compared to mothers believe that flexible workers are viewed as less committed and that working flexibly will have a negative impact on their career. Men in the UK make up only 25.8% of the part-time workforce. Part-time working is strongly associated with undertaking caring responsibilities at home

The Women and Equalities committee published a gender pay gap report in March 2016. The report showed that:

• Sharing care between fathers and mothers is an important key to reducing the gender pay gap
• Many fathers want to fulfil their caring responsibilities for their children
• The Government’s flagship policy of Shared Parental Leave, introduced in 2015, is likely to have little impact, with a predicted take-up rate of just 2-8%

You can download the report here

As a result, the Women and Equalities committee have launched an inquiry. It will seek evidence on several issues including:

• How well do fathers feel their current working arrangements help them to fulfill their caring responsibilities for children of all ages?
• Are there employment related barriers to fathers sharing caring roles more equally?
• Are their social or attitudinal barriers to fathers in the workplace that need to be challenged?
• Are there specific issues facing fathers from particular groups or backgrounds, for example because of their income or ethnicity, or fathers of disabled children and young people?
• Are there examples (in the UK or internationally) of best practice amongst employers that could be taken up more widely?

Maria Miller, Chair of the Committee, said:

‘Many fathers want to take a more active role in caring for their children. Our report on the gender pay gap found that investing in policies that support men to share childcare equally, and allow women to continue working, will reap financial benefits as well as reducing the gender pay gap.

Supporting parents in the workplace is a priority for the Government. Yet it admits that its flagship Shared Parental Leave policy is likely to have a very low take-up rate.

Following our work on the gender pay gap, the Women and Equalities Committee is now asking whether fathers are being failed in the workplace. Clearly more needs to be done. We are keen to hear views from individuals as well as organisations about the changes which they would like to see.’