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ABSTRACT
Official Spanish policy seeks greater gender equality by, among other things, encouraging men’s use of their legal rights to parental leave and requiring employers to implement equality plans. This article contains a first-ever analysis of the extent to which company equality plans are used to improve upon the legal provisions governing parental leave and whether those improvements actually encourage greater leave use by men, help to degender leave use and promote fathers’ co-responsibility for childcare. The improvements implemented by companies are analysed against a backdrop of economic crisis (2007-2016), during which public policy underwent no substantial change. An analysis of the gender equality plans in place among 107 ‘gender equality employers’ (GEEs) revealed that most included no enhancement of the existing legislation and only a few work organizations provided incentives for men to use leaves as part of their work-life balance strategies. Substantial progress in this regard can only be expected through increasing government provision of parental leave aimed at men and/or increasing government pressure on companies to encourage leave taking by men.
RESUMEN
En los últimos años a través de las políticas públicas españolas se ha perseguido la igualdad de género. Entre las medidas impulsadas se encuentran, entre otras, la promoción de la utilización de los permisos parentales por parte de los empleados varones y la implementación de planes de igualdad por parte de los empleadores. Este artículo lleva a cabo por primera vez un análisis que comprueba el grado en el que los planes de igualdad sirven realmente para promover un mayor uso de los permisos parentales por parte de los hombres, ayudar a reducir la connotación de género de los permisos y promover la corresponsabilidad de los progenitores varones en el cuidado de niños. Se analizan las mejoras implementadas por las empresas en un periodo de crisis económica (2007–2016), en el cual no se realizó ninguna política pública relevante sobre el cuidado de niños. El análisis de los planes de igualdad de las 107 empresas reconocidas con el “distintivo de igualdad en la empresa” (DIE) reveló que la mayoría no incluye mejoras en la legislación sobre permisos parentales y solo una minoría de empresas proveen incentivos para que los hombres utilicen permisos como parte de sus estrategias de conciliación. Un progreso sustancial en la provisión y utilización de los permisos parentales por parte de los hombres solo puede ser esperado a través del incremento de las políticas públicas en la provisión de permisos parentales dirigidos a los hombres o/y a través de un incremento de la presión a las empresas sobre la promoción de la utilización de permisos parentales por parte de los varones.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Gerardo Meil ([email protected]) is professor in Sociology at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). Master Degree in Economics and in Political Science, and Doctorate in Sociology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 1987. President of the European Society on Family Relations and member of several scientific societies. His research and publications focus on Family Sociology, Balancing Work and Family lives, Gender Violence, geographical Mobility and Social Policy. He has implemented many research projects on these topics funded by public and private institutions at regional, national and European level. The current research project which he coordinates, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, focuses on the use of parental leave in Spain. For a full vita see his web-page at http://www.uam.es/gerardo.meil
Pedro Romero-Balsas ([email protected]) is Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He holds a PhD in Sociology (with distinction) by Autonomous University of Madrid, 2014. He has a bachelor in Sociology. He has a master's degree in Social Anthropology and a Master’s Diploma in Multivariate Statistical Techniques. He has been visiting researcher fellow at Thomas Coram Research Unit (University College London), at the Federal Institute for Population Research (Germany) and at the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the NTNU (Norway). He is member of the executive board of the European Society on Family Relations and board member of the RN13 in the European Sociological Association. His research areas are Sociology of Families, Parental Leave, Fatherhood, Parenthood, Multicultural Families, Job Mobility and Public Policies.
Concepción Castrillo ([email protected]) is a researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid (Grupo de Estudios Socioculturales Contemporáneos, GRESCO). She holds a PhD in Sociology by Complutense University of Madrid (2015) and a bachelor degree in Sociology at the same University (2008). She has been a visiting researcher fellow at the Department of Sociology of the University of Cambridge and at the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Social Transformations at the Complutense University of Madrid (TRANSOC). Her research interests are Gender Studies, Sociology of Families, Fatherhood, Sociology of Emotions and Social Theory.
Notes
1. The Law drafted in 2009 to extend the leave to four weeks was not implemented till 2017, due to the economic crisis.
2. These plans, which must remain in place for as long as it takes to eliminate the gender inequalities identified in the analysis stage, must be registered with the competent authority in each region, although they need not be made public. Companies not formulating or applying the plans approve are fined for amounts of up to 187 515 euros. Smaller companies can also voluntarily design and implement gender equality plans, while State and public institutions are obliged to establish gender equality units in charge of advising and supervising the effective application of the gender equality principle (section 77) and the Government has to design periodically gender equality strategies (section 64)
3. These companies (excluding financial services) employ around 27% of employees compared to 33% as a mean in EU-28, according to Eurostat Annual Enterprise Statistics.
4. Reconciliation is obviously not the only element of these plans defined in the act. Other categories suggested include employability, professional category, promotion and training, remuneration and prevention of sexual harassment and harassment on the grounds of sex.
5. The others are the same as specified in footnote 4. The list is not exhaustive, however, nor is the inclusion of all the headings mentioned mandatory.
7. Whilst 5% of companies limited this benefit to certain groups of employees, most (the remaining 11%) made it available to all eligible fathers.
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