By Dr Sarah Forbes and Dr Holly Birkett
Co-directors of the Equal Parenting Project
As the country moved towards mass homeworking, dads were at home with their children for the whole working week, often for the first time. Dads began taking on more caring responsibilities (even if mothers were still doing more).
Increasingly, questions are being asked about how can we improve gender equality in the workplace, reduce the gender pay-gap and balance gender representation on boards.
One important way workplaces can improve gender equality is by supporting dads to take on more caring responsibilities. If we make it easier and more appealing for dads to work flexibly and take on caring responsibilities we can reduce the pressure on mothers to do it all, improve the labour market attachments of mothers, reduce the motherhood penalty, and give families more choice about how they care for their children.
COVID-19 has had a mixed impact on gender equality. Women were more likely to be furloughed, more likely to lose their jobs and more likely to be in front line roles. Research conducted by the Equal Parenting Project at the University of Birmingham, shows that mothers took on the bulk of extra caring responsibilities when schools were closed. However, there was also a quiet revolution in terms of fathering and paternal identities. As the country moved towards mass homeworking, dads were at home with their children for the whole working week, often for the first time. Dads began taking on more caring responsibilities (even if mothers were still doing more).
Research during lockdown shows that the experience of spending more time with family and actively being more involved in the care and education of their children began to change the attitudes of dads and affect their future intentions to apply for flexible working. Large numbers of dads began to think about how they could better balance their family and working lives and consider asking for formal flexible working on their return to the office. Indeed, one study found that 60% of fathers planned to apply for formal homeworking after COVID-19 to spend more time with family.
During COVID-19, many fathers worked flexibly for the first time ever, either from home or flexitime, often around school hours, some even had to act as primary carers since their mothers were front-line workers. At the same time, managers started having to manage many more staff working flexibly and realised that flexibility does not equate to lazy or dysfunctional employees. Managers have also become more comfortable seeing their employees as people with families, interests and lives beyond work. Put simply, COVID-19 has created an opportunity to rethink work and to normalise flexible working and fathers caring, breaking down many of the barriers men have faced in these areas in the past. However, this progress is precarious. It could all be lost with the resurgence of a pre-COVID working culture regressing back towards presenteeism. Now is the time to encourage dads to take the leap and demand flexible working from their employers, to encourage employers to see flexibility as an opportunity to attract and retain talent, to inspire their workforce and to embrace equality and to fundamentally change the future of work.
While COVID-19 has begun breaking down key cultural and career barriers dads face in working flexibly and caring for children, other barriers are harder to destroy. Financial barriers persist, particularly as parental policies provide more support for mothers caring and since men still tend to earn more, families are likely to take a bigger hit financially if dads reduce their hours.
Some employers are blazing the trail, embracing flexibility and supporting all parents, or even focusing on fathers and encouraging them to think about what works best for them and their families as well as what can be supported by the company. Some employers offer fantastic parenting policies that match leave and pay for fathers to mothers. Some offer holistic return to work support for fathers who have been on extended shared parental leave with phased return, active parenting groups, even subsidised nurseries and some are actively encouraging dads to apply for flexible working. However, while organisations are realising they need to focus more on their EDI agenda in the wake of COVID-19, many are still unsure of how to drive gender equality in the workplace and even those that recognise the value of supporting men to drive gender equality can be unsure about how to get started.
To celebrate great initiatives in this area and promote positive change the Equal Parenting Project and Music Football Fatherhood have set up the annual Working Dads Employer Awards. These awards will identify those organisations that are excelling in one or more areas to support fathers, including: Parental leave, Support for Returning Fathers, Flexible Working for Fathers and Leadership and Culture.
You can find a link to the Awards and more information here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/business/research/research-projects/equal-parenting/working-dad’s-employer-awards-2022.aspx
- More about Dr Sarah Forbes at the University of Birmingham
- More about Dr Holly Birkett at the University of Birmingham
- More about the Equal Parenting Project
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Birmingham.