Public Servant Lifestyle

Until dads are able to take longer periods of paternity leave there is a danger that the importance of their role in family life will only be publicly acknowledged once a year - on Fathers' Day - according to comments made by Julie Mellor, Chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).

She said: "Many dads want to be more involved with caring for their children, as Alan Milburn's resignation has highlighted. But as long as the option of taking extended leave during a child's first year of life is restricted to women, mum will carry on being the one to do most of the childcare right from the start.

"Men are now entitled to take two weeks' paid paternity leave and to ask to change their working hours so they can look after young children. This is a fantastic step forwards. I hope it will bring their responsibilities as parents into the public domain and so start a change of culture at work. However, it's not enough – we need to give couples a real choice about how they share the job of caring for their child once the mother has recovered from the birth."

Parental Leave

Fathers and mothers can currently take up to 13 weeks unpaid parental leave for children aged under five, but only four weeks can be taken in any one year. The EOC believes fathers should be entitled to additional parental leave during their baby's first year of life. It will be holding a seminar later this year with a range of partners, including Fathers Direct and Maternity Alliance, to explore how this policy could be implemented.

A report carried out for the EOC last year by Margaret O'Brien and Ian Shemilt of the University of East Anglia, found that British dads do approximately a third of all childcare but don't get the flexibility they need at work to help them do more. It also found high support for work-life balance among fathers as well as mothers. However, fathers have lower expectations of family-friendly working practices being available to them personally and are less likely to take advantage of those that are in place.

That report; Working Fathers: Earning and Caring also cites the experience of the Nordic countries where governments have found that fathers are more likely to take parental leave under four key conditions: where it includes a quota designated for fathers, where there is high wage compensation, where there is flexibility in the way leave can be used by couples and where male provision is publicised through government awareness campaigns.

Dads on Dads

Dads on Dads, carried out for the EOC by MORI, found that dads play a range of roles in the family but most still see themselves primarily as a breadwinner. It identified women's lower average pay as a key factor in maintaining traditional gender roles in many families. Other factors that affect dads' involvement in the family include a lack of confidence in their own caring skills and a working culture of long and inflexible hours.

Since 6 April this year fathers are entitled to two weeks paid paternity leave and all parents of children under the age of 6 can ask to change their working hours.

More information available in Work Life Balance