Working fathers experience sex discrimination?

ABSTRACT

This paper critiques the judgment delivered by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of Price v Powys County Council on 31 March 2021. The judgment determined that it does not amount to sex discrimination if a mother can receive enhanced pay on adoption leave, whilst a father can only receive statutory pay on shared parental leave. The paper will reflect upon the significance of this judgment in exposing some of the reasons that have contributed towards the low uptake of shared parental leave by fathers in the United Kingdom. Focus will be placed on how the low levels of replacement pay to financially support the position of fathers in childcare has influenced the low take-up rates. Similarly, the need for an identically situated comparator under the formal equality approach adopted by the Equality Act 2010 and the court system to substantiate a discrimination claim has also contributed towards the failure to recognise the lower levels of replacement pay given to fathers as sex discrimination. This paper will conclude that a substantive equality approach would have better recognised that fathers belong to a marginalised sub-group within men who experience sex discrimination in the form of lesser financial support to undertake childcare due to the gender stereotype that fathers should be the financial breadwinner.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex discrimination
• fathers
• formal equality
• substantive equality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).