Retaining Women in STEM: The Question of Paternity Leave

By Hazel A. and Isobel Vernon-Avery

When the WYPB sat down to discuss the retention of women in STEM, paternity leave was an unexpected topic that emerged as a mechanism to improve the retention of women at work. Though paternity is often overlooked during discussion of gender progression in the workplace, we feel it should be an essential part of the conversation and as a result decided to write this blog to explore this further.?

Through our investigations we found there are many benefits from substantial paternity leave including mental health, inclusion in the workforce, and improved performance at work. The UK currently supports two weeks partially paid paternity leave, and though shared parental leave is an option, we believe this needs to be increased. See the end of this blog for actions, our initial conversation that inspired this blog and further information you can use to improve paternity leave.??

We researched the current paternity offering (in the UK and elsewhere), spoke to the WYPB and gathered experiences from WISE member companies to understand the policies and experiences of parents and colleagues.?

Before going any further we want to disclose that none of the current WYPB members have needed to use parental leave and therefore we have interviewed parents who are expecting, new, and established.?

Legislative parental leave globally ranges from a generous 156 weeks to no provision at all. Paternity leave is an important topic in the retention of women in the workforce as it impacts and touches many challenges including gendered roles within work and home. Equal parental rights and opportunities are beneficial for all, but when comparing parental leave in the UK it leaves much to be desired for gender parity and the retention of women. The UK Government parental policy is outlined below.

Warning - As the financial incentive, length leave, and shared parental leave varies across countries, and is unique to the couple, it’s very difficult to compare like for like.? Please bear in mind when reading the following.?

The number of countries where paternity leave is enshrined in law has increased by over 50% in the past two decades, and now nearly half of all organizations provide paid leave above the legal minimum threshold in the UK. However, the proportion of men who take up parental leave is still low. The UK, while better than many places, still has a way to go to be leading in this important provision. Interestingly countries such as Finland, which offers a very strong paternity leave offering, have low take up on the full time allotment. Japan is a similar story, though the state offers a generous 30 weeks in 2017 only 5% of fathers who qualified for it took paid leave, according to UNICEF. This to some extent reflects the engrained social bias towards women being the primary caregivers within families. Germany has some of the most generous parental leave laws in the world. It has successfully managed to bridge the gender gap in this regard, even though Germany is also a country that traditionally had expected mothers to stay at home.?

A comparison of some European countries paternity leave allowances in March 2020 is shown below:

In our conversations within WYPB member organisations, there were five overarching themes that emerged:

• Paternity leave improves mental and physical health for both parents: Taking up paternity leave offerings, or taking longer leave where possible helps, according to our colleagues and question respondents, with mental and physical health. This is corroborated by a study from Swedish birth records - in 2012, new parents could split their leave allocations. After this policy was implemented, there was an 11% decrease in antibiotic prescriptions and 26% reduction in the prescription of anti-anxiety drugs for mothers in the first six months in comparison to before leave could be split. In addition to this, our colleagues mentioned the importance of paternity leave to enable new parents to “feel more like you are in it together (as parents)” (Male colleague at Arup). This respondent also mentioned that it helps address gender roles - “it is not ‘the woman's job’ to look after the baby” - paternity leave helps share the challenges and exciting moments of being a new parent and subsequently, people are able to adjust t the new lifestyle and needs faster.
• Reducing stigma of being a parent through paternity policies: Clearer paternity leave and shared parental leave policies would help to normalise the fact that parents will take a decent portion of time off during the first year or so of their child’s birth, and therefore there is no stigma about “being a mum or parent”. This stigma was mentioned by several male colleagues across organisations and CIPD found in a recent study that 73% of men feel stigmatized for taking extended paternity leave. To address this challenge, parents felt that the communication of parental leave uptake is important to address this stigma through creating role models within organizations, especially through senior men being honest and open about their leave uptake - leading by example.??

• We need better provision for more diverse family structures: The split of paternity and maternity leave as it currently stands fails to address diverse structures of families. This not only applies to sexual orientation of the parents but also applies to the fostering and adoptive processes that some parents go through. Fortunately the UK offers Shared Parental leave to all parents in a bid to cover more diverse family structures. Though we found many were either not aware, had poor or no information within the company about taking it, particularly were adopting, or it was not a financially viable option as maternity leave was much more generous, dissuading fathers in taking shared leave.?

One colleague and parent mentioned that “a challenge was that parental leave starts when a child is born, but it was not explained how this related to adopted children”.

• Flexible working is important as part of this discussion: Flexible working days to support the parent on long term parental leave after a child arrives were highlighted as something that would significantly support both parents. This was raised particularly in relation to creating an inclusive environment for staff. Women are most likely to work part time or take time off for childcare - 89% of people in the UK not working due to child care are female. Flexible working can help address inclusion in the workplace, and by extension improve the gender pay gap by allowing all employees to work flexibly without repercussions. In addition, having flexibility when returning to work would help keep parents integrated in the workforce, for example through “keep in touch days” to help the return to full or flexible work (Female colleague at Capgemini).?
• Performance at work would be better: “The mental health burden of going back to work and trying to maintain full ‘performance’ whilst also trying to juggle support to mother and baby (and toddler!) is huge” (Male colleague at BMT). This is a repeating message from our respondents not just from a retention perspective (a Scottish study found that fathers and parents who received parental leave were more likely to stay with their organisations) and also as women would have more support, the effects of maternity leave would be less detrimental. For example, mothers would have more support physically, mentally and have more time to get back into work at a rate that suited them.

Our conversations with men across STEM industries revealed the spectrum of company offerings, and the lives that these policies and laws impact. Thank you to everyone who took part in our interviews and contributed to this blog piece.

We invite you to sign this petition advocating for equal parental leave in the UK. We close this blog with a question to our readers, how can you support parents in your organisations?

Helpful reading links:?

• WYPB Paternity Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaQt1DthKWU
• Why paternity leave benefits everyone | The Way We Work, a TED series
• Parenting penalties faced by scientist mothers - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01993-x
• Promoting gender equality through regulation: the case of parental leave https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20508840.2020.1830565
• COVID Has Laid Bare the Inequities That Face Mothers in STEM -?https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-has-laid-bare-the-inequities-that-face-mothers-in-stem/