Will shared parental leave change attitudes?

Jo Faragher

A report from the TUC this week could have been pulled out of the 1970s or 1980s.

The organisation found that the sacking, bullying and sidelining of pregnant women was still commonplace at work, despite a host of legislation put in place over the past few decades to protect them.

It points to the fact that the number of cases taken to employment tribunal during the recession went up by a fifth. It highlights the fact that often, the minute someone announces their ‘happy news’, a disturbing number of managers begin to sideline and shun them, denying them prospects of promotion on their return.

But while it’s certainly shocking that employer attitudes towards women taking time off to have babies have barely changed, the report makes little reference to the fact this isn’t always a gender-specific issue. After all, fathers at work who decide to take more than the statutory two weeks of leave face perhaps more discrimination than women, because employers think that they can get away with saying ‘It’ll harm your career’, or ‘Men don’t take time off’.

A raft of new family-friendly legislation, most recently with the introduction of the Shared Parental Leave Regulations (on 1 December), has ostensibly made it easier for fathers to play a part in the upbringing of their children. Under the new rules, fathers are able to share up to a year of parental leave with the mother of the child after it’s born.

But while this is now enshrined in law, it remains to be seen how many fathers will feel comfortable taking the leave. The legal predecessor to Shared Parental Leave, known as Additional Paternity Leave, was only taken up by only one in 172 fathers, according to the TUC. In this case, one of the key barriers was pay, as not all families could afford a father to be off for a longer period on statutory government pay.

It’s thought that this time around, more employers will offer to enhance parental pay so more fathers take the leave. But that won’t get around the cultural difficulties fathers face in asking for extended time off for childcare.

While employers are comfortable with women taking long periods away from the workplace, for some managers it is a surprise if a senior male manager decides to step off the career ladder for a while.

The result? The men that do so face exactly the same issues of being sidelined, shunned and discriminated against that the TUC describes as being the case for women.

This isn’t a gender discrimination issue – employers simply need to become more accepting of both parents having responsibilities at home.