{"id":6232,"date":"2017-04-14T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T12:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=6232"},"modified":"2017-04-13T10:31:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T15:31:40","slug":"why-fathers-are-afraid-to-take-advantage-of-paternity-leave-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2017\/04\/14\/why-fathers-are-afraid-to-take-advantage-of-paternity-leave-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Fathers Are Afraid to Take Advantage of Paternity Leave Policies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Jonty Fisher, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Policies around parental leave have received a lot of attention recently, both in the U.S. and abroad. Conversations about paternity leave often focus on the lack of support for new fathers who want to stay home with their newborn, but a\u00a0recent article<\/a> in <\/span>The Guardian<\/span><\/em> looks at why fathers who are given the option of paternity leave in the U.K. often don\u2019t take it.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the article, only one in 100 men requested parental leave in the year after a\u00a0U.K. policy was instituted that allowed shared parental leave. Even when shared leave is available, only 2-8% of men are likely to take it, and unless the leave is specifically for the father, a mother will be far more likely to take the shared parental leave. One reason for fathers not taking advantage of the policy is that they fear damaging their careers or their family\u2019s income by asking for leave. Women have long been viewed as the primary caretakers for children, and fathers reported that they faced discrimination in the workplace if they\u00a0asked for parental leave, including remarks by their coworkers and management that they were not taking their jobs as seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sociologist <\/span>Tina Miller<\/span><\/a>\u00a0believes that the solution to this low uptake in paternity leave could be to allocate separate leave that is just for fathers and is nontransferable to the mother. She says,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are serious about men being involved, it\u2019s the only way. Mothers and fathers don\u2019t take decisions about who takes leave from a level playing field \u2013 it\u2019s gendered, it\u2019s historically unequal.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Policies around parental leave have received a lot of attention recently, both in the U.S. and abroad. Conversations about paternity leave often focus on the lack of support for new fathers who want to stay home with their newborn, but a\u00a0recent article in The Guardian looks at why fathers who are given the option of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,13,85],"tags":[39114,39110,96162,38871,39115],"class_list":["post-6232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender","category-inequality","category-politics","tag-gender","tag-inequality","tag-paternal-leave","tag-paternity-leave","tag-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6236,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6232\/revisions\/6236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}