There has been a considerable shift in attitudes towards maternity and paternity leave in recent years and this has been demonstrated by steps such as that taken in 2011 by the government, offering Additional Paternity Leave to new fathers.
Statutory paternity leave lasts for only two weeks and the idea behind extending this to offer fathers the chance to take Additional Paternity Leave was to allow fathers to spend more time with their children, and also to attempt to shift some of the burden of childcare from the mother to make it somewhat more even.
However, figures that were obtained by shadow childcare minister Lucy Powell have indicated that the take up rate for this extra paternity leave is extremely low, with fewer than one in 50 fathers using it.
The way Additional Paternity Leave works is to allow an employee to take up to 26 weeks leave from work to look after a new baby. This can only be taken once the mother has returned to work from statutory maternity leave (or adoption leave) or has ended her own entitlement. Additional Paternity Leave can then be taken at the current statutory rate of pay of £138.18 per week. The figures show that in 2012/3 only 1.4% of new fathers took up Additional Paternity Leave and in 2011/2 the figure was just 0.8%.
A number of reasons have been put forward as to why this might be the case. The figures obtained are based on the statutory payments that are paid by an employer to an employee after the money has been claimed by the employer from the government. It may be that some employers don’t claim these payments back, or that there are a number of new fathers who are giving up work altogether, rather than simply taking paternity leave.
However, the issue, as many see it, is a cultural one and relates to the perceptions of male and female roles when it comes to childcare in the UK. Women are viewed as the natural child carers and this has been the case for thousands of years – attitudes, it would seem, are hard to alter when so ingrained. This is illustrated by the fact that in 2012, 18% of men who requested flexible arrangements were refused, compared with 10% of women. There is generally less sympathy for men who have become new fathers, as opposed to women who have become new mothers, and for most the pressure of perceptions is still strong i.e. ‘how will it look at work’ to take that extended period of time off to stay at home with a child.
Clearly, there are some fairly considerable cultural barriers to be overcome if this type of leave is really to work. The Additional Paternity Leave system is to be replaced in April 2015 by Shared Parental Leave, which is designed to make sharing the childcare even easier. Shared Parental Leave will give eligible parents the chance to share up to 50 weeks leave – this will allow parents to be off together, as well as to regularly swap. The hope is that the new type of leave will be more successful than the attempt to extend paternity leave options – and perhaps by next year cultural perceptions might have shifted a little too.