The Dad Shift

This week, we gave evidence in Parliament to an MP's inquiry into paternity leave. It felt like a big step forward for the campaign, and gave us a chance to argue some key points directly to MPs: - Why it's not just "woke dads" who want to spend more time looking after their kids (see the clip for the answer on that one!) - Why the poverty-level pay, not cultural pressure, is the single biggest barrier to dads taking more paternity leave - Why better paternity leave wouldn't just be good for families and help bring down the gender pay gap, it would also be a no-brainer economic investment Thank you to the hundreds of people who responded to our call to share their paternity leave stories with MPs. Better than any statistics, these stories show the true cost of our rubbish paternity leave - the mental health breakdowns, the children growing up distant from their dads, the mothers left alone in agony recovering from a C-section. It's well past time things changed, and we made a good step towards that this week.

"You can't grow the economy if parents have to choose between work and their children." That was Keir Starmer's response to a question in last week's PMQs from Luke Charters MP about our campaign for better paternity leave in last week's PMQs. Why are these words important? Because they acknowledge the link between paternity leave, and what we hear time and again is the government's number 1 priority: economic growth. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just done some research showing that 6 weeks' paternity leave at 90% pay would generate ￡2.6 billion in growth by helping mums get back to work if they want to, while costing the treasury a tiny fraction of that. Like affordable childcare, paternity leave isn't just a right for workers: it is infrastructure. It's a vital investment in parents' ability to contribute at work while also doing the best for their children. At the moment, too many are having to choose - and that's bad for us, our employers, or our economy.

Thanks so much for supporting the campaign Brené Brown ??

"It was awful. I was almost a stranger, because I didn't have that time with them." Today is the 10th anniversary of the introduction of Shared Parental Leave, which allows parents to transfer some maternity leave to fathers. It was meant to fix our broken parental leave system and make it easier for dads to be a bigger part of their kids' lives - but 10 years on, it's clear that it's failed. The numbers are damning. Less than 2% of families use Shared Parental Leave - because it's too poorly paid, too complicated, and forces couples to take leave away from mums (which many are reluctant to do). We used an FOI request to uncover that the 2% figure also contains deep inequalities. SPL pay is so low that just 100 people in the bottom 30% of earners took it last year. More SPL is claimed in London than Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the North West and the North East combined. Josh's story was part of a segment The Dad Shift contributed to for BBC Breakfast this morning. He, like the vast majority of families, couldn't afford to take Shared Parental Leave - and so he missed out on the time he needed to bond with twin girls after they were born. If we're going to make sure every dad can bond with their babies, be there for their partners, and get started on being decent fathers, the answer isn't Shared Parental Leave: it's longer, properly paid paternity leave. If you haven't already, add your name to back better paternity leave now: https://lnkd.in/eQZuxvh8

It's been a big 7 days for the campaign in Parliament. Last week, dozens of dads and babies came to deliver our open letter to the government, signed by 16,000 people and 30 MPs. Then yesterday, we had our first MPs debate on paternity leave in Parliament, where so many MPs wanted to speak in favour of our campaign that they ran out of time in the debate! The momentum is with us, but there's still a long way to go. Help win better paternity leave for every family - add your name now: https://lnkd.in/e8UQdEMN Video?from Boot Creative?with thanks to our partners?Movember

One sentence in this report jumped out to us in particular: "the trust’s surveys of human resources decision-makers reveal[ed] some won’t hire women because of the “risk of their fertility” This awful discrimination against women and mums is all too common, as Pregnant Then Screwed's work has also shown, and it's one of the key reasons we need better paternity leave. If it's normal for dads to take longer off work to look after their babies and to be more actively involved in their care longer term, companies will be less likely to selectively discriminate against women in their 20s and 30s (which, for the record, they absolutely shouldn't be doing anyway). Thank you Young Women's Trust and Kate Nightingale for this super valuable work ??

Hello LinkedIn ?? If you haven't already, add your name calling for better paternity leave in the UK. It's currently the worst in Europe, and it's about time that changed: