Is Paternity Leave Reasonable?
Maternity leave for women is acceptable throughout the world and is enforced through the respective labor laws of every country. The significance of maternity leave is realized due to the responsibility of women towards their newborns and the vitality of mother’s presence for the survival and care of infants. With the importance of maternal care being realized at universal level, the significance of paternal care for the infant is still under discussion and receives little support from corporate and industries. Though several studies have established that father’s care is also vital for an infant, the concept of paternity leave still remains a topic of debate. Several countries, realizing the importance for paternity leaves for harmonious relationships at home, less stress to working mothers and benefits to society like gender equality at workplace have mandated the paternity leave. However, only mandating the paternity leave doesn’t suffice as it has to be paid amply to enable men to support his family in financial terms. The paternity leave have several advantages which are to be realized to make it paid and mandatory similar to maternity leaves.
Many leading private sector organizations have responded to the increased demand for parental leave for both men and women with the number of weeks provided being regularly cited as an indicator of an employer of choice. This paid leave has been provided on the expectation that return rates for women (men considered rarely) will be higher. The policy recommendations have been narrow in perspective, ignoring broader gender equity issues and the need to consider providing both paid parental and paternity leave. The policies till sometime back missed the considerations of fathers and their work and caring commitments towards their families and didn’t consider providing paid parental leaves to them. Whereas, several countries have mandated the paternity leave which is unpaid , mandated paternity leave which is paid is still rare to find. Few organizations only permit their employees for paternity leaves in the countries, where it is not mandatory to allow such leaves. For example, in the United States, only 1 per cent of fathers are eligible for paid paternity leaves in either the public or private sectors (Tamis-LeMonda & Cabrera, 1999).
A major reason for not providing the men paternity leaves is because of the lack of significance accorded to the requirement of men to take such leave, such as the opportunity for men to provide care for their newborns; and the lack of emphasis on the needs of children to be connected to their fathers. Greater consideration needs to be given to the potential impact paid paternity leave and men taking parental leave could have on the connections men make with their children. Further, children need to have this direct caring experience with their fathers. There is almost an absence of recognition of children in relation to their fathers (White & Russell, 2005).
The transformations which occurs in the women’s and men’s family and work lives with a child makes it just as significant for working men to receive adequate leave to care for their family members as it is for women. If family care policies are not equally available to men and women, gender equity in the workplace is impossible to achieve. In the absence of such policies, many women have to carry double the workload of most men, combining the paid and unpaid work of women; men will not have the same opportunities as women to develop relationships with their children and aging family members, and children will be unlikely to receive as much parental care as they would otherwise benefit from.
Paternity leave is one of the key policies for improving gender equity at home, and for contributing to the healthy development of newborns. Moreover, paternity leave is central to the reduction of marital stress; fathers who have longer paternity leaves are more involved with their infants and families. A study of dual earner parents with at least one child aged three to five months found that in addition to enhancing infant development, father’s supportive roles helped maternal depression.
The impact of paternity leave policies; when they are sufficiently long in duration and are paid at meaningful level, on equity in the workplace can be as important as their impact on equity at home. In nearly every country, women are disadvantaged in promotions and pay because of childbearing. The anticipation in the office is that women will go off on their parental duty for infants leading to interruptions in the work. Men taking paternity leave can encourage changes in attitudes at work as well as at home.
Leave that is specifically reserved for fathers can provide important advantages over general parental leave that is allowed for either parent. The OECD’s Babies and Bosses studies observed that when weeks of paid parental leave were provided specifically for fathers and paid well enough not to impose a large financial penalty for taking them, use of this leave by men in Sweden and Finland increased. In contrast, general policies related to parental leaves, while gender neutral on paper, were often not so in practice. These Scandinavian countries became aware of the differential uptake regarding parental leave by mothers and fathers and responded by creating a portion of parental leave that was “use it or lose it” for fathers only. The impact was marked, a signal both for employers who had been discouraging fathers from taking parental leave and for men who had deferred it themselves. Once men began to stay home with infants, the gender balance shifted in Swedish homes as fathers started taking greater responsibility for childcare and becoming more deeply involved in their children’s lives over time.
The paternity leave plays a significant role and should be considered as one direct outcome of men’s inability to contribute to the act of parenting leads to women being really busy. They in effect do a ‘double shift’ leading to substantial stress as the resultant. A surprising 86 per cent of employed women working full time stated that they suffer from lack of time to follow their plans and perform their duties, thereby being vulnerable to higher stress by 20 % in comparison to their male partners . The pressure of earning combined with extended work hours at home leads to “time squeeze” phenomenon as majority of time of women is spent in taking care of children or in office, thereby further alleviating the stress and the requirement of assistance be male partner.
In the cases where both parents are working and child has to be left in childcare, several advantages of paternity leaves are there; first and foremost is the interests of child. Several evidences have been presented to illustrate that parental care conducted directly, when desired and voluntary by the parent is effective in the early years of child and is far better than the care provided in the childcare institutions. The parental care, either by mother or father in the first six months of child plays a significant role in social, emotional, physical and intellectual development of child. In the event of paternal leaves, the childcare in initial months can be segregated between both parents, thus not burdening the women only with child raising duty. The emotional security provided by presence of both the parents near child shapes the child’s confidence level and behavior in its later years.
The paternal leave may also assist in increasing the birth rate as the working women who are married and career-oriented postpones the child birth due to their inability to focus on work after childbirth. Due to society pressures, women has to raise children and hence, career oriented women experience a slack in their career due to devoting maximum time to child and home, in the wake of new responsibilities. Maternal leave which is provided to women also marks a significant gap in women’s career and several working women experience lag in their career due to their absence from work for 14 weeks or more. The possibility for men to take paternal leave can promote career-oriented women to plan child as they can be assured of childcare responsibilities being shared by their partners. The active participation of men in caring for the child in initial months can ease off burden from women and women can focus on their work single-mindedly, thus covering the gap in their career most effectively and quickly. The flexibility introduced by the mandatory paternity leave for father opens up a new dimension for the child raising families as with the effective planning in relation to maternal and paternal leaves, the child’s care in initial months can be performed effectively.
The paternal leave’s aspect in relation to improving birthrate is significant at the economic and social level for countries like UK which has been dealing with declining birthrates in the families owing to the working parents and time pressures. If the birthrate keeps on declining, there are very strong prospects that the population level would reach inappropriate levels and the country would suffer from a serious lack of taxpayers, young generation and workers to support the country’s economic and social system and country’s aging population (Wilkinson & Mulgan, 1995). The countries like UK, anticipating the present birthrate needs to place some remedial measures like paternity leaves for men to encourage birthrate in country. The most striking trend in Western Europe since 1998 has been an emphasis on fatherhood and consequently on policies that promote their involvement either by introducing or enhancing paternity leave or encouraging fathers to take parental leaves (Deven & Moss, 2002). These policies are generally applicable to wage-earning employed men. Father’s use of paternal leave has been the focus of policies directed at fathers in several countries.
Paternal leave also infuses gender equity and material equity in the society and at workplaces. The women always considered the prime candidate for child raising activity shifts the burden to their male partners with men being equally responsible and sensitive towards child raising activities pleasures and pains. However, the paternal leave is only not enough it has to be supported by income also during the time of leave. Moreover, the paid paternity leave should pay enough amounts to support the family and should not be a formality only. Several countries promotes paternity leave but are not being paid which leads to men not using the paternity leave as they realize the importance of earning money and couldn’t afford to lose their income by carrying out their parenting responsibilities. Hence, it’s important that paternity leave should be paid well enough to ensure that is utilized by the men. To illustrate, Norway has paid parental leave which leads to their utilization by men and results in increased material equality between women and men .
Paternal leave also follows from the interests of the fathers who also prefer to spend time with their newborns and share responsibilities of childcare and are unable to do because of their jobs. With the changing times and increasing gender equalities, men have become considerate towards their wives and understands their stress resulting from work overload, however finds themselves unable to cooperate with their wives due to lack of time and energy. Hence, paternal leave would also meet the requirement of men to participate in the child care process of their child actively.
It can be concluded that paternity leave is significant for several reasons and contributes to the society in several measures. Paternity leave, though not considered as significant a decade back, has now emerged as an important aspect of parenting owing to the altering faces of the families and society. Working women are career-oriented and refrain from childbirth due to biased approach of society towards women in relation to child raising activity. Societal makeup is such that it expects women to perform dual job and care for child along with working to support family financially. Due to changing needs, most of the families have working partners and in such events, child bearing and raising proves to be challenge, sometimes so tormenting for relations of husband and wife that it leads to divorce. The stress of the working mother and double work needs to be shared by the male partner, which doesn’t seem possible in the absence of paternity leave. As women are provided with maternity leaves, this becomes an accepted notion that they will raise the child. The pressing financial needs compels the women to work in office along with raising children, thus crushing their personalities and becoming victims of suppressed emotions, angers and expectations. The tough lives of working mothers also inspires other women to not to have children, if they are career-oriented and do not wish to get lagged behind in their career. The men, however willing to assist their wives in child raising activity are restricted by their careers, no availability of leaves and if available, unpaid or meagerly paid leaves. In order to overcome the negative consequences and promote gender equality at workplaces and society in general, paid paternity leaves should be accorded to men.
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