Why Obstruct a Dad’s Caring Time?- Paternity Leave Also Matters

"A mother takes time off work after birth, and no one panics. A father tries to take time off to spend with his family, and everybody loses their minds. "

Whilst getting my daily dose of social media scrolling done, I just stopped my moving fingers with this meme, which was intentionally created to evoke a sense of withering sarcasm.

In a typical family, the mother gets paid maternity leave to look after the newborn. However, by considering fathers' involvement in this process, governments and workplaces have taken on board the decision to grant equal paternity leave to fathers. Recently, the world has been blowing hot and cold regarding this topic, with one party advocating for paternity leave and the other merely laughing at it. The statistics from the World Bank state that 105 economies in the world guarantee at least one day of paid paternity leave for the birth of a child or reserve a portion of paid parental leave. This shows that the world is progressing towards making paternity leave mandatory worldwide in baby steps but steadily. On the flip side, there is much misbelief twinned around this fact. All in all, paternity leave is a right of every father who possesses a child born with his flesh and blood, and all authorities should consider making flexible leave plans for them.

If you are an enthusiast of exploring gender equality, one notion may have caught your attention. Parental leave might be one way to help close gaps between men and women. Also, granting paternity leave for their male workers has been noticed by many company owners as they have started recognizing how it could be beneficial for the company as well as for their employers. It is a well-noted fact that women have lower engagement rates in the labour market. This gender gap in labour market outcomes is strongly correlated with motherhood. For example, the World Bank research shows that, in countries where fathers can look after children after birth, female labour force participation and female employment are, on average, slightly higher. The introduction of two weeks of paternity leave in Spain increased fathers' involvement in childcare and led to higher labour force participation among mothers.

Therefore, when the father is also given leave for the mother, there is a more egalitarian division of labour. In a different vein, companies cannot ignore the organizational benefits received by granting paternity leave. For instance, research carried out among male employers showed that paid paternity leave had a positive effect on their productivity. In addition, more than two-thirds of the fathers who participated in the research confirmed that they would change jobs to spend more time with their kids. Therefore, parental leave plays a decisive role within a country's economy and inside an organization.

However, although flames of courage are burning inside activists who fight for paternity leave, a considerable number of men are not encouraged to take leave even when paternity leave policies are in place. This is because of cultural norms. Breaking these misunderstandings about the topic could be mainly achieved by educating parents about the family benefits of taking this leave policy.

One must not need to be a philosopher or a sage to understand that taking paternity leave will strengthen the father's bond with his children. An infant's first two months are crucial in building solid parent-child relationships. Sadly, missing out on the most important events of the infant's first year means the father is less engaged with his child's life. Most importantly, offering opportunities to fathers to engage more in the lives of their kids has multiple benefits. For instance, a father's involvement reduces the frequency of behavioural and psychological issues in young boys. Moreover, it has been found that when more people are around to care for an infant, the baby becomes healthier. For example, as mentioned by credible sources, just offering parental leave can help lower child mortality rates by as much as 5%. On a different note, fathers taking paternity leave assists the mother's recovery after the delivery. What medical experts say is that if the father is not at home while the mother recovers, it may take longer for them to heal and may even have side effects after the delivery.

We'd like to continue our discussion by discussing only the benefits without addressing the elephant in the room. In the global scheme of things, how can we dream of a world where every government and company has flexible paternity leave policies? Firstly, it is the culture that should be changed and not only the policy. The 2020 McKinsey survey of working fathers says that "having the right policy in place wasn't sufficient if the work culture looked down on them for taking time off." Therefore, companies should ensure that their workplace culture embraces people who take paternity leave and that these fathers' career paths may not be handicapped when they return to the workforce. Another possible action is that companies can create flexible work schedules for new fathers. This may help them to squeeze in more time to care for their kids inside their everyday work routines. It's humanity which matters the most. Governments and companies should be sensitive enough to treat their workforce as humans and grant flexible paternity leave opportunities.

On a concluding note, paternity leave offers benefits for parents, families, companies and also for large economies. Nevertheless, it is a problem that this act of granting leave is thrown overboard by certain factions of the society. On another day, surprisingly, while scrolling through my social media feed, my fingers made a stop by the thoughtful quote below.

"Paternity leave is key in bonding and being together and giving dads a chance to connect… It's so crazy that it's not the norm." – Laura.