Making use of work–family balance entitlements: how to support fathers with combining employment and caregiving

ABSTRACT

Much workplace support to parents offered by employers is gender neutral in design, but fathers’ usage rates are generally very low and far below that of mothers. This paper reflects on men’s dual roles as fathers and employees in relation to formal and informal work policies and practices, with the aim of answering the question: How could fathers feel supported by their work environment to take a more active caregiving role in the lives of their children? We take a capabilities approach to explore models of change, which supports the assumption that many fathers are somehow not fully enabled by their organisations to use policies. Focus groups were conducted within a large public sector organisation in the UK to capture the individual and interactional experiences of fathers. Findings suggest that workplace culture, line manager relationships, the ‘modelling’ behaviour of peers and gendered leave practices all impact on how fathers feel about using work-family balance policies, and whether they are likely to use them. The limits of workplace support for fathers can be challenged via the consideration of some key institutional conversion factors which if addressed may better enable fathers to exercise greater agency with regard to work-family balance entitlements.

RÉSUMÉ

Le soutien offert par les employeurs aux parents sur le lieu de travail est neutre en termes de conception, mais les taux d'utilisation des pères sont généralement très bas et très inférieurs à ceux des mères. Cet article se penche sur le double rôle des pères et des employés en matière de politiques et de pratiques de travail formel et informel, dans le but de répondre à la question suivante: Comment les pères peuvent-ils se sentir aidés dans leur milieu de travail à combiner emploi et soins? Nous adoptons une approche axée sur les capacités pour explorer des modèles de changement, ce qui appuie l'hypothèse selon laquelle de nombreux pères ne sont pas en quelque sorte complètement habilités par leurs organisations à utiliser des politiques. Des groupes de discussion ont été organisés au sein d'une grande organisation du secteur public au Royaume-Uni pour saisir les expériences individuelles et interactionnelles des pères. Les résultats suggèrent que la culture du lieu de travail, les relations hiérarchiques, le comportement de modélisation des pairs et les pratiques de congé sexospécifiques influent sur la façon dont les pères perçoivent les politiques d'équilibre travail-famille et sur leur utilisation potentielle.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared childcare
• work-family balance
• fathers
• capabilities
• leave policy

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Garde d'enfants partagée
• équilibre travail-famille
• les pères
• capacités
• politique de congé parental

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the support of Sam Pringle at Fathers Network Scotland. Other colleagues are not named to preserve the anonymity of the case study organisation, but we record our thanks to them. We also record our gratitude to the participants in the focus groups for their insights and their time.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jessica Moran completed the research for this paper during her MSc Social Research at the University of Edinburgh and is currently a PhD candidate at the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.

Professor Alison Koslowski holds a Personal Chair in Social Policy and Research Methods at the University of Edinburgh and is a member of the International Network on Leave Policies and Research.

ORCID

Alison Koslowski http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6221-718X

Notes

1. See (O’Brien & Koslowski, 2017) for a full review of entitlements.

2. All participants were in heterosexual relationships.

3. Other themes that arose but which were not further developed in the analysis included: lack of affordable childcare and the heavy financial burden of childcare costs, even for very high earners; the role of mothers as gatekeepers in encouraging (or not) fathers to be involved in childcare; fathers’ lack of social networks with other parents in comparison to mothers; and the career penalty feared as a result of taking time away from work to care for children.