working better: fathers, family and work – contemporary ......fathers with children under one year...

Equality and Human Rights CommissionResearch summary 41

Working Better: Fathers, family and work –contemporary perspectives

1

Introduction 2

Fathers’ attitudes to work and care 3

Fathers want to spend more time with and prioritisetheir children 4

Where fathers differ from mothers 5

Meeting aspirations 8

Workplace flexibility 10

Fathers’ views on current and proposed paternityleave policies 12

Conclusions 14

Working Better: policy recommendations 15

Contents

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Fathers, family and work: contemporary perspectives

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In summer 2008, the Equality and Human RightsCommission launched ‘Working Better’, a new policyinitiative to explore how we can match the aspirations of employeeswith the needs of employers. The Working Better project is aimedat setting a new agenda to meet the changing needs of families,workers and employers in the 21st century. Its purpose is to findsolutions that will increase choice, fairness and equality forparents, carers, disabled people, young people and older workers.This short report focuses on fathers and their experiences of andattitudes towards work and care.

Introduction

The role of fathers as care-givers withinthe family has received increasingattention from policy and research in thelast decade. While there have been hugechanges in women’s participation inemployment over the last 30 years, men’scontribution to childcare has not increasedat the same rate. In most cases, womencontinue to shoulder the responsibility forchildcare, even in households where bothparents work full-time.

The desire of many fathers to spend moretime with their children can be frustratedby long working hours and inflexibleworkplaces, leading to tensions betweenwork and family. There is ongoing debateas to how policy might better enablefathers to spend more time with theirfamilies, and become more involved in theday-to-day care of their children.However, as studies on work-life balancehave usually focused on women, we knowrelatively little about men’s employmentand how it relates to their family lives.

This paper offers new insights into howfathers experience and think about workand care in Great Britain today. Themajority of modern fathers are non-traditional in their views. On some issues,fathers hold less traditional views thanmothers. But although fathers expressegalitarian views, in practice, most stillwork full-time and their partners providethe bulk of childcare within the family.However, there are encouraging signs ofchange. Flexible working is highly valuedby fathers for the benefits it brings tofamily life and they are optimistic aboutproposals for more leave for fathers.

The paper draws on a large quantitativedataset from an online survey of 2,261fathers and is supported by qualitativedata from several online forums involvinga wide range of groups of fathers. YouGovconducted the research as part of theoverarching Working Better programme of work in December 2008 (see Ellison etal, 2009), and all figures and quotes usedin this paper are from this study.(1)

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The vast majority of fathers work full time and six in 10 of the survey work over 40 hours a week. This is not anew finding. But while on the surface fathers still appeared toconform to the traditional male-as-breadwinner role, theirattitudes towards parenting roles were much less traditional.

Fathers’ attitudes to workand care

Although nearly half (47 per cent) offathers thought that the father’s role is toprovide, only 23 per cent of fathers(compared to 34 per cent of mothers)thought that childcare is the primaryresponsibility of the mother. Over half (55

per cent) of the fathers surveyed believedthat the parent who is paid more shouldstay at work, regardless of whether theyare male or female. Sixty-two per centthought that fathers (in general) shouldspend more time caring for their children(see Table 1).

To what extent do you agree with the following statements?

% of fatherswho agree

% of motherswho agree

n (unweighted)

Fathers should spend more timecaring for their children

62 59 2230

The parent who is paid moreshould stay at work regardless ofwhether they are male or female

55 41 2217

Fathers are responsible forproviding for their family

47 31 2234

Table 1: Attitudes towards work and care

Childcare is the primaryresponsibility of the mother

23 34 2232


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Many fathers were also dissatisfied with the amount oftime they spent at work and the amount of time theyspent with their children. Half of fathers, and particularlythose who work long hours, believed they spent too much time atwork, while 42 per cent of fathers thought they spent too little timewith their children. This figure rises to over half (54 per cent) forfathers with children under one year (see Figure 1).

Fathers want to spend moretime with and prioritise theirchildren

There is evidence that a significantminority of fathers provide care for theirchildren during the traditional workingweek. Nearly one in five fathers (21 percent) of pre-school children said that, aspart of their child’s childcare

arrangements from Monday to Friday,their child was at home with them. Two infive fathers (43 per cent) of school-agedchildren said they provided care beforeand after school.

Figure 1: Fathers who feel they spend too little time with their children

Base: All fathers (n=2026)

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

80%

Child under 1 year Child 1-6 year Child 6-16 year

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Fathers and mothers held broadly similar views aboutwork and care. However, they differed on who has primaryresponsibility for childcare; who should be responsible forproviding financially, and; satisfaction with working hours.

Where fathers differ from mothers

Thirty one per cent of fathers who livewith their partners said they sharedprimary responsibility with their partners.In contrast, only 14 per cent of womenliving with their partners said thatresponsibility was shared. This mayindicate that fathers who shareresponsibility with their partners are morelikely to take part in a survey on parenting,and are therefore over represented in thesample. However, similar discrepanciesbetween men's and women's perceptionsof who is responsible for childcare havebeen found in other studies. This suggeststhat fathers tend to overestimate their owncontribution to childcare, or that womentend to underestimate their partner’scontributions (or a combination ofboth).(2)

Fathers appear to have less traditionalviews than mothers on some aspects ofparenting. For example, they were lesslikely (23 per cent) than mothers (34 percent) to think that childcare is the primaryresponsibility of the mother, and morelikely (55 per cent) than mothers (41 percent) to believe that the parent who is paidmore should stay at work regardless ofwhether they are male or female.

Fathers were less satisfied with theirworking hours than mothers were withtheirs: 46 per cent thought they spent‘about the right amount of time’ at work,compared to 61 per cent of mothers.However, fathers were nearly three timesas likely as mothers to agree that workcomes first (17 per cent compared to sixper cent), and were more likely thanmothers to think that they could meet theneeds of both work and care (50 per centcompared to 42 per cent of mothers).


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Where fathers differ from mothersContinued

Figure 2: Differences in fathers’ and mothers’ attitudes towards work andcare, and experiences of work and care %

The parent who is paid more should stayat work regardless of gender (n=4337)

Childcare is primary responsibility ofmother (n=4375)

Spend ‘about the right amount’ of time atwork (n=3248)

Primary responsibility for childcare sharedwith partner (n=4375)

70%60%50%40%30%20%10%0%

MothersFathers

80%


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‘In society, women aregenerally more expected totake the lead on childcareand family life... We try toshare things more equallyin our family – somaternity leave, whilemuch appreciated, alsoshifted the balance of ourfamily relationships in anodd way.’

(Married with three children aged 13, and twins 10)

Nearly six in 10 fathers (58 per cent) believe that it ispossible for partners to share responsibilities aroundwork and childcare equally. However, fathers who want tospend more time with their families face challenges in doing so.

Meeting aspirations

Only nine per cent of fathers said theyhave primary responsibility for childcare(two per cent of whom were lone parents),while a third of those living with theirpartners said they shared thisresponsibility with their partner (althoughas seen in section 3, men’s and women’sviews diverge on shared responsibility).

There is some evidence to suggest thatsome sub-groups of fathers are more likelyto share responsibility. In particular,fathers with a disabled child were lesslikely to be working full time and weretwice as likely to say they had primaryresponsibility for childcare as fatherswithout a disabled child (17 per centcompared to eight per cent). Gay andbisexual fathers were also more than twiceas likely as heterosexual fathers to reporthaving primary responsibility (20 percent, compared to eight per cent). Whilethere is no other quantitative research on lesbian, gay or bisexual parents,qualitative studies have shown that

‘I would like to spend moretime with my children. Butas a couple we decided thatas I can support the familyit would be best if my wifewas to leave her work.Although she has moreinteraction with thechildren than I do we haveall parts of family lifecovered between us.’

(Married with three children aged five, and twins seven)

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gay fathers tend to have egalitarianhouseholds and be actively involved incaring for their children.(3)

The most commonly cited reason fathersgave for working was financial necessity(63 per cent), while far fewer gave career-related reasons for staying in work. Whileover half of fathers said they had a goodcompromise between work and care, nearlya quarter (23 per cent) said that theirarrangements caused ‘tension and stress’at home. Disabled fathers and fathers withdisabled children, ethnic minority fathers

and those with a household income of lessthan £15,000 per year, were more likely to report that their arrangements caused‘tension and stress’. A study by Clarke andMcKay (2008) showed that families with a disabled parent or child are at a higherrisk of family breakdown than otherfamilies, but that this was closely relatedto financial pressures.(4) The increasedlevels of tension and stress reportedamong the fathers in our survey may beattributed to low income levels rather than the fathers being disabled, or of aethnic minority group, per se.

% who agree /strongly agree

n (unweighted)

Fathers who earn


10

There is evidence that a significant minority of fatherstake advantage of greater flexibility within the workplace,and that this brings benefits to their family lives.

Workplace flexibility

Almost half of fathers (49 per cent) saidthat some form of flexible working wasavailable to them. The four most commonforms available to fathers were flexitime,staggered start and finishing times andworking from home. While over half ofmothers (51 per cent) said that part-timework was available to them, only 20 percent of fathers thought they had thisoption.

The availability of flexible working varieswidely by sector. Sixty per cent of fathersin the finance and business sector saidthat flexible working was available tothem, compared to only 30 per cent ofthose employed in manufacturingindustries (see Figure 3).

Although flexible working was availableto half of fathers, only 30 per cent wereactually using it. Those who were workingflexibly were more likely to be doing sodue to flexible working being a feature ofthe job when they started (41 per cent)than through a formal (or informal)negotiation (26 per cent) (see Figure 4).

While nearly one in three fathers (32 percent) said that nothing would stop themasking for flexible working, around two in five said that being marked out as notcommitted to their jobs (36%), or thethought that it would negatively affecttheir chances of promotion (44%), wouldstop them from making a request.

The overwhelming majority (96 per cent)of fathers who were working flexiblyvalued their working arrangements, whiletwo thirds (66 per cent) of all fathersconsidered the availability of flexibleworking to be important when looking for a new job.

This research showed a low awareness of the current right to request flexibleworking policy: a quarter of fathers knewabout the April 2009 extension of thislegislation to parents of children up to the age of 16.

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Figure 3: Availability and usage of flexible working by sector:

Figure 4: Routes to flexible working

Feature of jobwhen started41%

Imposedchanges4%

Other/none29%

Formalnegotiation8%

Informalnegotiation18%

Manufacturing

80%60%40%20%0%

Construction

Retail

Transport

Public administration, education and health

Community and social work

Financial andbusiness sectors

Flexible working is available but father not currently working flexiblyCurrently working flexibly

Base: All fathers who are employed(n=1812)Question asked: Do you currently haveany form of flexible working availableto you?NB: Hotels, restaurants and leisuresector excluded due to low cell counts

Base: All fathers who are working flexibly (n=600)Question: Did your flexible working come about due to any of the following?


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Over half (55 per cent) of fathers with a child under sixyears took statutory paternity leave when their last childwas born.(5) The majority (56 per cent) of these fathers said thattaking time off around the birth of their child led to them taking agreater role in caring for their children, while 69 per cent said it ledto improvements in family life.

Fathers’ views on currentand proposed paternity leave policies

Of those who did not take paternity leave,two thirds (66 per cent) said they wouldhave liked to ‘a lot’. The most commonreason these fathers gave for not doing so was being unable to afford to take thetime off.

At present, employed fathers are entitledto take two weeks’ paid paternity leave(paid at £123.06 per week) and 13 weeks’unpaid parental leave. They also have theright to request flexible working on thesame basis as mothers. In addition, theGovernment recently published draftAdditional Paternity Leave Regulationswhich it is currently consulting on. This

will introduce the new right to transfer upto six months maternity leave to the fatheronly if the mother returns to work. Thenew right will come into force in April 2011.

There was strong support among fathersfor longer paternity leave (see Figure 5).Over half (54 per cent) supported anoption to transfer up to six months of themother’s maternity leave to the father.Sixty-one per cent supported an additionalfour weeks paid leave that would bereserved solely for the father andimportantly, 55 per cent of employedfathers said they would take this kind of leave if it were available.

‘I was made redundant two weeks before the birth of ourchild so had a couple of months off before starting my nextjob. This time out of work was a real blessing in disguiseas I could help take some of the pressure off my wife... I would advise any guy to take the maximum paternityleave available.’ (Married, with son under one)

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60%40%20%0%

Think current paternity leave should belonger (n=2271)

Would support option to transfer portionof maternity leave to father (n=2271)

Would support extra 4 weeks paid leavereserved for fathers (n=2271)

Would definitely take extra 4 weeks paidleave if available (n=1668)

Figure 5: Fathers’ views on paternity leave:

80%


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The findings from this survey show that fathers’ attitudestowards parenting do not appear to match the reality oftheir work and care arrangements. Their rejection oftraditional views, dissatisfaction with the time they spend withtheir children and their strong support for extended paternity leaveshows a willingness to be involved in the day-to-day care of theirchildren. In practice, however, most fathers still work full time, andmany work long hours.

Conclusions

Comparing sub-groups of fathers has alsoshown that combining work and care is byno means a universal experience. Theways in which fathers organise their workand caring responsibilities can differ bywhether or not they have a disabled child,how much money they earn, or byethnicity. The availability and use offlexible working varies widely byoccupational sector.

A significant minority of fathers areworking flexibly and enjoying the benefitsthat this brings to their family lives. Fromthese fathers and from those who are notas fortunate, there are clear messagesabout what they would like to see in termsof improving their work-family balance:greater flexibility in the workplace, longerand better paid paternity leave, andgreater flexibility for fathers and theirpartners to decide what works best for them.

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The findings presented in this paper are part of WorkingBetter, a wider programme of work undertaken by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which looksat the impact of public policy and workplace culture onhow work is organised in the UK. The Commission has set out detailed recommendations that seek to enable genuine choices for men to take up caring responsibilities. The Commission recommends:

Working Better: policyrecommendations

A series of incremental changes overthe next decade to increase men’s takeup of family leave and make it longer,better paid and more flexible,culminating in the introduction ofgender neutral parental leave by 2020.

Greater flexibility in paternity andparental leave including paternity,maternity and parental leave that canbe taken as days, weeks or longerblocks of time, with temporary part-time work as a standard option.

A publicity drive to raise awareness ofthe right to request flexible working,particularly targeted at fathers.

Targeting reluctant employers by usinga quality part-time jobs fund tosubsidise employers who offer newfathers a reserved month of reducedhours / flexitime compressed hours.

The full recommendations can be found inthe report Working Better: Meeting thechanging needs of families, workers andemployers in the 21st century (EHRC,2009).

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1 The members of YouGov’s researchpanel are drawn from all sections ofsociety, but are not recruited using a random probability samplingapproach. The data is weighted onfactors such as age, education, genderand socio-economic classification toensure as close a match as possible tothe GB population, but the findingscannot be generalised to the GBpopulation. For further informationabout the methods used, see the mainreport. Ellison, G., Barker, A., andKulasuriya, T. (2009). ‘Work and care:a study of modern parents’, EHRC.

2 See, for example, Lee and Waite (2005)Husbands' and wives' time spent onhousework: A comparison of

Endnotesmeasures, who showed spouses’estimates of their own and each others’contributions to housework to varysubstantially.

3 Dunne, G. A. (2005). The differentdimensions of gay fatherhood.Swindon: ESRC.

4 Clarke, H. and McKay, S. (2008)Exploring disability, family formationand break-up: Reviewing theevidence. London: DWP.

5 As statutory paternity leave wasintroduced in April 2003, only fatherswith a child under the age of six wereasked this question.

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