Workplace support and European fathers’ use of state policies promoting shared childcare

ABSTRACT

Social policies such as paternity leave and parental leave offer fathers the opportunity to be more involved in childcare than earlier generations of fathers. While such policies are increasingly offered by governments around the world, research by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research shows that many European fathers do not take advantage of these benefits, despite fathers’ growing interest in participation in early childcare. This article introduces a special issue devoted to understanding how the workplace can impact European fathers’ interest in and abilities to take leave, a topic that has received relatively little research attention. The articles in the special issue suggest that barriers to European fathers’ leavetaking are deeply embedded in workplace culture and work practices and will be difficult to eradicate without a dramatic challenge to the concept of the male ideal worker, who prioritizes work above family.

RÉSUMÉ

Les politiques sociales comme le congé de paternité et le congé parental offrent aux pères l’opportunité de s’involver dans les soins aux enfants plus que les pères des générations précédentes l’ont fait. Tandis que telles politiques sont offertes de plus en plus par les gouvernements autour du monde, les recherches du Réseau international sur les Politiques de Congé montrent que beacoup de pères ne prennent pas davantage de ces bénéfices. Cet article introduit un numéro thématique sur la compréhension de l’impact du lieu de travail sur l’intérêt des pères européens au congé et sur leur capacité d’en profiter, un sujet auquel les recherches ont accordé peu d’attention. Les articles dans ce numéro thématique suggèrent que les barrières à l’utilisation des congés par les pères sont profondément intégrées dans la culture du lieu de travail et les habitudes de travail, et seront difficiles à éliminer sans un défi dramatique contre la conception de l’homme travailleur idéal, qui donne priorité au travail plutôt qu’à la famille.

KEYWORDS:

• European fathers
• workplace support
• paternity leave
• parental leave

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Pères européens
• soutien en milieu de travail
• congé de paternité
• congé parental

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Correction

The vast majority of contemporary Europeans (94%) agree that men should take as much responsibility for home and children as women (Knight & Brinton, 2017). Social policies can offer employed fathers the opportunity to participate more in family life while retaining job security. One such policy is state-mandated paternity leave, defined as an entitlement for fathers that enables them to take a short period of paid time off work immediately following the birth of a child, often associated with providing help and support to the mother. Another policy supporting working fathers’ caregiving is parental leave, defined as a longer period of paid or unpaid leave from work, designed to provide a parent the opportunity to care for a young child, which takes place after and is separate from maternity and paternity leaves.

Fathers’ use of these policies in a variety of cultural contexts is important to study because fathers’ leave use can have several positive outcomes. Most researched is childcare sharing; fathers participate more actively in the care of their young children the longer they have taken parental leave in the past (Almqvist & Duvander, 2014; Arnalds, Eydal, & Gislason, 2013; Bünning, 2015; Evertsson, Boye, & Erman, 2018; Haas & Hwang, 2008; Meil, 2013; Nepomnyaschy & Waldfogel, 2007; Pragg & Knoester, 2017). Fathers’ use of parental leave also has positive benefits for children’s development (Cools, Fiva, & Kirkeboen, 2015; Huerta et al., 2013; Liu & Skans, 2009), as well as mothers’ employment income (Andersen, 2018; Evertsson & Duvander, 2011). Experts argue that until organizations see work-family issues as a man’s as well as a woman’s issue, the equality gap will widen (Mills & Culbertson, 2017). This special issue contains research articles that examine barriers to fathers’ use of state-mandated rights to paternity leave and parental leave in six European countries. The focus is on barriers associated with the workplace.

This cover article for the special issue has four aims. First, we provide a rationale for the special issue by discussing the extent to which European fathers fail to take advantage of leave rights and some potential reasons for this related to the workplace. Secondly, we describe the methods and major findings of the articles in the special issue. Next, we summarize the articles’ major themes concerning the impact of the workplace on men’s leave use. Lastly, we draw conclusions and offer suggestions for future research.

Rationale for the special issue

The provision-utilization gap

The International Network on Leave Policies and Research annually publishes information on European fathers’ rights to paternity and parental leaves and their use of these rights (Blum, Koslowski, Macht, & Moss, 2018). Information from 2018 suggests that while fathers often have statutory rights to paternity and parental leaves, many do not take advantage of these rights.

Of the 31 European countries included in the latest Review, 22 offer state-mandated paternity leave for workers in both public and private sectors; an additional nation offers the right only to public sector workers (see Table 1). Paternity leave is defined as an entitlement that enables fathers to take a short period of leave off work following the birth of a child, associated with providing support to the mother. The average paternity leave offered is about 13 days, and two-thirds offer well-paid compensation (66% or more of regular wages), typically up to an income ceiling that varies in generosity by nation and limits compensation for higher wage workers. Unfortunately, usage data is lacking in nine countries, suggesting that use is uncommon and/or not an important data collection priority. In the 14 countries with usage data, the percentage of fathers taking paternity leave ranges from 1% to 88%. In three countries less than half of eligible fathers take paternity leave. In five nations between 50% and 75% take paternity leave. In only five nations do 75% or more of fathers take paternity leave (See Table 1).

Table 1. European fathers’ rights to and use of state-mandated leave, September 2018*.

Eastern Europe:
	Paternity leave rights	Percent taking paternity leave	Father’s parental leave rights	Parental leave use by fathers
Bulgaria	15 well-paid, obligatory days	33%	Family entitlement to 24 partly paid months – fathers may take any part	1% of leave users are men
Czech Republic	7 well-paid days	No data	Family entitlement to 36 well-paid months – fathers may take any part	No data
Hungary	5 well-paid days	No data	Family entitlement of 7 well-paid months – fathers may take any part	No data
Poland	10 well-paid days	No data	Family entitlement of 7.4 well-paid months – fathers may take any part	1% take leave
Romania	5 well-paid days	No data	Family entitlement of 12 well-paid months – fathers may take any part; families lose 1 month if father does not take 1 month	No data
Russian Federation	None	Not applicable	Family entitlement of 36 partly paid months fathers can take but leave can be taken by only one parent	0% take leave
Slovak Republic	None (Fathers can take 20–22 well-paid weeks of maternity leave)	(Fathers 7% maternity leave recipients)	Family entitlement of 36 partly paid months fathers can take but leave can be taken by only one parent	No data
Northern Europe:
	Paternity leave rights	Percent taking paternity leave	Father’s parental leave rights	Parental leave use by fathers
Denmark	10 well-paid days	80%	Individual nontransferable right to 8 well-paid months (32 weeks), maximum per family is 32 weeks	Fathers take 12% of all leave days
Estonia	10 well-paid days	50%	Family entitlement of 14.5 well-paid and 21.5 partly paid months – fathers can take any part	5% take leave, 10% of leave users are men
Finland	54 well-paid days	80%	Family entitlement of 7.3 well-paid months (158 days) – fathers may take all or part	2–3% take parental leave
Iceland	None (see parental leave)	Not applicable	Individual nontransferable right to 3 well-paid months, right to take any part of family entitle-ment of 3 well-paid months	81% take individual leave; 13% take family entitlement
Ireland	10 partly paid days	58%	Individual nontransferable right to 4.5 months (18 weeks) of unpaid leave	No data
Latvia	10 well-paid days	No data	Individual nontransferable right to 18 partly-paid months, but maximum per family is 18 months	20% of leave users are men
Lithuania	28 well-paid days	No data	Family entitlement of 12 well-paid, 12 partly-paid and 12 unpaid months – fathers can take all or part	22% take parental leave
Norway	10 unpaid days (instead compensated by employers)	89%	Individual nontransferable right to 2.5 well-paid months (10 weeks) and right to take any part of family entitlement of 6.5 months (26 weeks)	90% take parental leave, fathers take 18% of all parental leave days
Sweden	10 well-paid days	75%	Individual nontransferable right to 3 well-paid months (90 days), 5 well-paid and 10 unpaid months transferable to mothers	88% take parental leave, fathers take 26% of all parental leave days
United Kingdom	5 partly paid days	74%	Individual nontransferable right to 4.5 months (18 weeks) of unpaid leave, at most 1 month within calendar year	No data
Southern Europe:
	Paternity leave rights	Percent taking paternity leave	Father’s parental leave rights	Parental leave use by fathers
Croatia	None	Not applicable	Individual nontransferable right to 2 well-paid months & individual right to 2 well-paid months transferable to mothers	Fathers take 4% of all parental leave days
Greece	2 unpaid days (instead paid by employers)	1%	Individual nontransferable right to 4 unpaid months	0%
Italy	4 well-paid, obligatory days	No data	Individual nontransferable right to 6 months partly paid leave; maximum for couple is 10 months unless father takes six, otherwise 11 months	No data
Malta	Private sector: 1 unpaid day (instead compensated by employers); Public sector: 5 well-paid days	No data	Private sector: Individual nontransferable right to 4 unpaid months Public sector: Family entitlement of 12 unpaid months that fathers any part	No data
Portugal	None (see parental leave)	Not applicable	Individual nontransferable right to 1 well-paid month (15 days obligatory); right to take any part of family entitlement of 2.6–3.6 well-paid months (78–108 days) (if father takes 1 month, couple gets 1 month bonus)	71% take parental leave
Slovenia	30 well-paid days	80%	Individual right to 4.3 well-paid months transferable to mothers	6–7% take parental leave
Spain	Private sector: 2 unpaid days (instead compensated by employers) and 20 well-paid days; Public sector: 20 well-paid days	74%	Individual nontransferable right to 36 unpaid months	< 1% of fathers
Western Europe:
	Paternity leave rights	Percent taking paternity leave	Father’s parental leave rights	Parental leave use by fathers
Austria	Public sector only, 28 unpaid days	No data	Family entitlement of 3.5 well-paid months (14 weeks) and 2.5 unpaid months (10 weeks) that fathers can take any part	No data
Belgium	10 well-paid days (3 obligatory)	68%	Individual nontransferable right to 4 months of partly paid leave	26% take parental leave
France	11 well-paid days	62%	Individual nontransferable right to 24 months of partly paid leave	4% of leave users are men
Germany	None	Not applicable	Individual nontransferable right to 12 months of well-paid leave and 24 months of unpaid leave; if father takes 2 months, he can take 2 extra well-paid months	36% take parental leave
Luxembourg	None	Not applicable	Individual nontransferable right to 6 months of well-paid leave and 4 months of partly paid leave	10% take parental leave
Netherlands	2 unpaid days (instead compensated by employers) and 3 unpaid days	83%	Individual nontransferable right to 6 months (26 weeks) of unpaid leave	11% take parental leave
Switzerland	None	Not applicable	None	Not applicable

*This table was assembled from information provided by the International Network for Leave Policies and Research (Blum et al., 2018). Country regions are those used by the UN http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldageing19502050/pdf/96annexii.pdf. Some countries are omitted because information is lacking (Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Channel Islands, Faeroe Islands, Gibraltar, Holy See, Isle of Man, Lichtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, San Marino and Ukraine). Paternity leave is defined as an entitlement that enables fathers to take a short period of leave off work following the birth of a child, associated with providing support to the mother. Leave is voluntary, except where indicated. Paternity leave is typically well-paid by government, i.e. above 66% of regular income, unless indicated. Parental leave is defined as leave from work designed to provide a father the opportunity to care for a young child, separate paternity leave. Parental leave is considered well-paid if compensation is 65% or more of wages. Estimates of leave lengths allowed are based on the assumption that the father works a regular five-day work week.

Fathers have been granted the right to take parental leave by governments in 30 of the 31 European nations covered in the Network Review (See Table 1). Parental leave is defined as leave from work designed to provide opportunity to care for a young child, separate from paternity leave. Parental leave lengths vary widely, from three months to 36 months. In a majority of the nations (19), fathers’ have the individual right to parental leave (in accordance with European Union statutes), which can establish a strong sense entitlement for men to participate in early childcare, particularly when the leave cannot be transferred to mothers, which it cannot be in 18 of the 19 nations. Where fathers have the individual right to leave, it is well-paid in six nations (compensated at two-thirds or more of salary), typically up to an income ceiling that varies in generosity by nation and limits compensation for higher wage workers. The individual right to leave is unpaid in eight nations and partly paid in five. Usage data is available for only 10 nations. In seven of the 10 nations, less than half of fathers take individual leave; in four nations three-quarters or more do.

In 11 nations, fathers’ have only the right to take parental leave as part of a family entitlement that is shared with mothers. In eight of these nations, the leave is well-paid; in the remaining three leave is partly paid. However, given women’s traditional responsibility for early childcare, having to share the leave can be difficult for fathers to negotiate. Among the five nations with usage data, the proportion of fathers who take the family entitlement to parental leave is low, ranging from 0% to 22%.

The potential importance of workplace support

As indicated above, many fathers pass up the opportunity to take paternity leave and parental leave, despite the fact that it is often well-paid. It is therefore important to conduct research that provides more knowledge and understanding of the factors preventing European fathers from taking advantage of their leave rights. Many levels of social structure are likely to be involved, including individuals’ gender attitudes, partner relationships and families’ economic situations. In this special issue, we focus attention on how fathers’ inability to take advantage of leave policies may be rooted in the traditional structures of one social institution, the workplace. We argue that the workplace is often neglected as an obstacle to men’s leave use.

Neo-institutional theory suggests that organizations can be considered to be institutional actors which need to adapt to changes and expectations within their cultural and political environment, such as norms concerning active fatherhood and leave policies for fathers (Dacin, Goodstein, & Richard Scott, 2002). However, work organizations’ external and internal interests can collide. Liebig and Kron (2017, p. 108) maintain, ‘involved fatherhood seems diametrically opposed to organizational interests, since it challenges the full labor market availability of men.’ Consequently, it is not surprising that few employers have developed more flexible ways of working to facilitate fathers’ caregiving (Blithe, 2015).

Work organizations may also resist policy efforts to promote a more egalitarian division of labor between men and women because they are not gender neutral. Work cultures and work practices still tend to be founded upon and reinforce the ideology that women and men occupy separate spheres, with women as primary caregivers in the family and men as primary breadwinners intensely involved in the labor force. In addition, the workplace remains based on the norm of the ‘ideal worker,’ where workers are obligated to devote themselves to work without being free to consider caregiving desires and obligations (Burnett, Gattrell, Cooper, & Sparrow, 2013; Haas & Hwang, 2009; Hojgaard, 1997; Holter, 2007; Lewis & Stumbitz, 2017). The ideal worker norm can impact mothers’ ability to take advantage of their statutory rights to parental leave (Fodor & Glass, 2017); Goldin (2014) also hypothesizes that the assumption that work hours cannot be flexible is responsible for the remaining gender gap in pay. In this special issue, we focus on how the ideal worker norm can also have a negative impact on men who want to be active fathers, since it discourages them from taking time off. To promote fathers’ use of leave policies, it is important for researchers to discover what gendered aspects of the work culture and what specific work practices discourage men’s responsibility for childcare.

Despite the importance of fathers’ leave use for promoting a more egalitarian division of childcare, the impact of the workplace on men’s interest in and capability of taking paternity and parental leave is seldom investigated. This special issue was initiated to contribute new knowledge concerning what specific aspects of the workplace might negatively impact European fathers’ ability to take advantage of statutory policies designed to promote shared parenting such as paternity and parental leave. This information can be profitably used by researchers interested in pursuing the study of the relationship between fatherhood and work and also by work organizations, labor market partners and governments interested in making it possible for more men to take time off work to care for children.

Articles in the special issue

Contributors to the six articles in this special issue were recruited through the International Network on Leave Policies and Research. At least one author of each article is a member of this network, a group that since 2004 has annually updated country reports on leave policies and has held an annual seminar to discuss policy and research on leave policies. (See leavenetwork.org.) Each article in this special issue covers one nation. Although work-family policies are often studied cross-nationally, focusing on a particular nation allows these researchers to explain how the cultural and policy context may impact fathers’ rights to and use of paternity and parental leave. Later in this paper, we discuss cross-cutting themes for all six countries. Three of the nations, covered first, have been world leaders in providing leave rights to fathers; the remaining three are just beginning to offer fathers opportunities for early childcare with job security.

Finland

The article titled ‘Principles and practices of fathers taking parental leave at Finnish workplaces,’ is co-authored by Johanna Närvi, Johanna Lammi-Takula and Minna Salmi. Currently, Finnish fathers have the right to nine weeks of well-paid paternity leave, instead of individualized parental leave, and 80% of all fathers take advantage of this right (See Table 1). Finnish fathers also have the right to share 158 days of well-paid parental leave with mothers, but only 5% of fathers do so. At the time of this study, fathers were entitled to take three weeks of paternity leave and six weeks of nontransferable parental leave (now combined into nine weeks of paternity leave), along with two types of family leave that mothers typically took (six months of well-paid parental leave and lowly compensated child care leave until a child reached age three). This study analyzed the results of a web-based survey of fathers of two-year-olds, a sample obtained from government records of those who had taken at least 13 leave days. Survey results were compared to interviews conducted at five workplaces with human resource managers and two to four-member work teams who were fathers and mostly white-collar workers who had taken leave. These discussions provided an opportunity for teammates to exchange views about what was acceptable and what was deviant at the workplace, offering important insights into workplace culture. They were stimulated by the interviewer asking them to respond to previously formulated statements, such as ‘Fathers would be more active users of family leave, if attitudes at workplaces were more positive and if it would be easier to take time off from work.’

The researchers found that surveyed fathers did not report negative reactions to their leavetaking at the workplace; however, results indicated that leave was less likely in more male-dominated private companies than in less male-dominated public workplaces. While it was assumed that fathers would take advantage of the short leave earmarked for fathers, interviews with both managers and fathers noted that the workplace took for granted that fathers would not take advantage of additional leave available to them. Men’s strong work orientation and the intensive, fast changing and highly specialized nature of their jobs were all offered as explanations for low leave use. The lack of regular arrangements for replacing men taking leave also discouraged longer leaves. Without replacements, co-workers took on extra work, fathers did work from home or work waited on fathers to return from leave.

Norway

Berit Brandth and Elin Kvande co-authored the article titled ‘Workplace support of fathers’ parental leave use in Norway.’ Norwegian fathers have enjoyed individualized nontransferable rights to well-paid parental leave since 1993 and today 90% of fathers take advantage of this. They also have the right to two weeks of paternity leave, compensated by employers, and 89% of fathers use this. The authors explain that employers’ adjustment to the ‘father’s quota’ for parental leave was made possible by the Norwegian model of working life, which recognizes employees’ rights in exchange for employees’ organizational commitment. Interviews were conducted with fathers who had taken two to ten months of full-time parental leave. Among other topics, interviewers asked questions about workplace attitudes toward their leave use as well as some hypothetical questions about what would happen if there was no father’s quota for leave.

Fathers reported that the earmarked quota for leave made it much easier to negotiate leave with the workplace and also for them to temporarily step away from their jobs to which they were highly committed. The article also makes clear that these fathers’ successful use of leave was only possible by fathers’ cooperation and compromising. For example, fathers cooperated by providing a plan for how their work would be done while they were gone. They compromised by planning their leaves at a time when their jobs were less busy, and compromised time with children by their willingness to continue doing some of their jobs even while on leave as a convenience to the employer.

Sweden

A third article on the Nordic countries, co-authored by Linda Haas and Philip Hwang, is titled ‘Policy is not enough – the influence of the gendered workplace on fathers’ use of parental leave in Sweden.’ Swedish fathers have the right to two weeks of well-paid paternity leave, which three-quarters take. Like Norway, Sweden has a long history of providing fathers with well-paid individualized parental leave (now three months) and the vast majority of fathers (88%) take advantage of it. However, Swedish fathers tend to take longer parental leaves than Norwegian fathers, taking 26% of all parental leave days, compared to Norwegian fathers’ average of 18% (See Table 1). Research by Bergqvist and Saxonberg (2017) suggests Swedish culture promotes more equal sharing of childcare than Norwegian culture does. This study focuses on fathers taking leave in private companies, examining this topic by studying five organizations in-depth, relying upon several employees as informants – a top manager, the HR manager, middle managers and fathers who worked under those middle managers, representing both white-collar and blue-collar workers. Fathers were interviewed in focus groups, made up of workmates, and the anecdotal conversations revealed insights into the culture about fathering and the norms governing leave use that individual interviews and surveys are less likely to capture. Interviews began with vignettes; short descriptions of hypothetical circumstances designed to stimulate discussion. It is a less threatening way of approaching sensitive topics and can also uncover cultural norms. An example was the following: ‘At a coffee break, one middle-level manager mentions he would like to take parental leave for some months. He is however worried that it would perhaps negatively affect his career opportunities. What would you tell him?’

The authors found that workplace norms discouraged fathers’ leave use, including the ideal worker norm where the job took priority and the norm that leaves should be organized to reduce disruption to the company. Even when highly predisposed to take leave, fathers reported that the structure of work made this difficult; this included heavy work demands and a high degree of specialization. Blue-collar fathers worried that leave could threaten their job security while white-collar fathers worried that they would have less promotion opportunities if they take too much leave or took leave at the wrong time.

Slovenia

The fourth article in the collection focuses on Slovenia, located in southern Europe. Slovenia offers fathers a generous 30 well-paid days of paternity leave, which 80% of fathers take. Fathers also have the individual right to 4.3 months of well-paid parental leave, but only 6–7% take advantage of this, probably because it is transferable to mothers (See Table 1). The article in this collection is titled, ‘The problem is in practice: Policy support and employer support for fathers’ participation in childcare in Slovenia,’ and is authored by Nada Stropnik Ziva Humer, Aleksandra Mrčela Kanjuo and Janez Štebe. This is the first article to ever focus on the work-family balance of Slovenian men; it is based on an online survey of employed fathers and interviews with male managers, all with young children.

This article illustrates the limits that social policy has on fathers’ and companies’ interest in the dual-earner/dual-caregiver family model. The authors’ analysis shows that fathers retain traditional attitudes toward their employment and family roles and that these attitudes serve as a more formidable barrier to their taking advantage of parental leave than does overt workplace opposition. The authors report, ‘Only the fathers who strongly believe in the necessity of being active fathers behave so in practice.’ However, fathers were concerned that their jobs or careers would suffer if they took advantage of public policies and companies were not aware that shared caregiving was a goal in many families. Managers were also poor role models of policy use; when they took advantage of parental leave policies, they still did work from home. This article uses the term ‘weekend fatherhood’ to describe how fathers Slovenian fathers participate in family life.

Spain

While Spain has historically been conservative in terms of gender equality, the authors in this special issue report that advocacy for caring fatherhood is increasingly part of cultural and political discourses. The article on Spain, co-authored by Gerardo Meil, Pedro Romero-Balsas and Concepción Castrillo-Bustamante, is titled, ‘The effectiveness of corporate gender equality plans in improving leave provisions for fathers in Spain.’ The Spanish Equality Act calls for men and women to share responsibility for income earning and childrearing and requires large companies to file equality plans annually. Their study is the first ever to examine company equality plans to investigate if they can promote fathers’ use of leave. Researchers studied companies with equality plans which had earned them designation as ‘gender equal employers.’ This type of purposive sampling has the virtue of focusing our attention on what progressive companies are doing for fathers.

Researchers systematically analyzed the content of equality plans to learn whether they contained incentives for fathers to take advantage of statutory leave policies. Few plans extended the amount of paid paternity leave for fathers, increased the payment fathers could expect from paternity leave or encouraged fathers to take advantage of parental leave, e.g. by offering bonus leave to families when fathers take leave. The authors conclude that neither the equality plan requirement nor the gender equal employer designation were effective methods of encouraging companies to take specific measures to realize fathers’ increased involvement in caregiving, a government goal.

Scotland

The last country featured in the special issue is Scotland, part of the United Kingdom. The UK, along with other English-speaking countries such as Australia and the US, has lagged considerably behind many European nations in the establishment of parental leave rights for fathers (Baird & O’Brien, 2015). Scottish fathers have the right to two partly paid weeks of paternity leave and 45% take this. Fathers also have the individual right to 8.3 weeks of leave, but this is unpaid (with no statistics on usage). This article, co-authored by Jessica Moran and Alison Koslowski, is titled ‘Making use of work-family balance entitlements: How to support fathers with combining employment and caregiving.’ The researchers conducted a case study of a public work organization chosen because it provided supplemental pay for statutory paternity leave and its own flexibility options to fathers. Focus groups were interviewed to learn about shared organizational values; these included teammates who were fathers of children under age five.

Researchers found that fathers took for granted that they would take their two weeks of paternity leave because their work organization fully compensated them for taking this. Fathers felt however that this leave was too short and that they were not able to take advantage of other statutory leave policies because these were unpaid. Fathers also reported feeling uncomfortable asking for more time off because they were uncertain about the reception they would get from managers. Furthermore, fathers felt that the lack of managerial role models for taking leave and other work-family benefits had a negative impact on their own use.

Major factors related to fathers’ leavetaking

When considering cross-cutting themes in the articles in this special issue, we identified three factors that appear to impact fathers’ ability to take advantage of statutory leave policies: (1) type of statutory policy design, (2) whether they work in a public or private workplace, and (3) the pervasiveness of taken for granted, informal limits to fathers’ leavetaking, embedded in workplace culture and work practices.

Policy design

All six studies suggest social policy design has a major impact on how father’s rights to leave are regarded at the workplace. When leave is an individual nontransferable right for fathers and is well-compensated by national law (i.e. in Finland, Norway, Sweden), researchers in this collection report that fathers feel a strong sense of entitlement to take leave. When leave was transferable to mothers, fathers seldom took leave. Previous research on fathers’ rights to parental leave internationally has come to similar conclusions (Karu & Tremblay, 2018; O’Brien, 2009). The Norwegian authors explain why individualized nontransferable leave is important: ‘employers felt compelled to allow men to take leave … also the quota puts pressure on individual fathers to go against any ideal worker norms.’ A Norwegian father who was interviewed said, ‘Very many men would have problems at work to take voluntary leave. Really. I’m sure! That’s what would happen to me at any rate guaranteed!’ Another Norwegian father said, ‘it feels like there’s pressure on you to take it.’

The importance of adequate wage compensation in policy design is also evident as an important factor influencing fathers’ leave in two nations covered in the special issue (Scotland and Spain), where fathers have individualized rights to leave but low or no compensation. The authors of the article on Scotland concluded ‘fathers’ intentions for their caring role may be side-lined or subverted by statutory provision which many find inadequate, and which delivers ideological messages about the nature of and the importance of their role.’

When statutory leave provisions are weak for fathers, because they are not individualized nontransferable rights or are not well-paid, companies could improve upon these rights, for example offering fathers’ their own rights to leave or increasing the payment for leave. Den Dulk and her colleagues (2010) argue that companies should not be assumed to be passive actors that offer work-family benefits only if they are obligated by government. In this special issue, however, research concerning Spanish companies’ equality plans found that most companies which had won awards for gender equality did not extend statutory leave benefits especially to fathers. Their findings suggest that governments might improve fathers’ opportunities to participate in early childcare if they required companies to develop and implement equality plans that specifically offered fathers some type of encouragement to use statutory leave rights.

What happens to fathers’ leave use when work organizations provide increased wage compensation for statutory leave benefits? In Scotland providing greater wage compensation for leave did result in some fathers taking more leave, although most fathers were still hesitant about taking advantage of other benefits like flextime that would help them provide childcare. The Scottish authors concluded that it ‘remains difficult, even in the relatively progressive environment of our case study organization, for parents with gender equal attitudes to act on their values with authenticity and parent in line with their beliefs when their child arrives.’ This study suggests that companies are likely to have limited success in encouraging fathers’ participation in early childcare without statutory support. The Spanish authors also contend: ‘Specific legal provisions on leaves constitute the most promising avenue for substantial progress in this area.’ A generous and strong leave mandate for fathers coming from governments seems to be the most effective approach, based on the examples of Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Lastly, in terms of policy design, it is worth noting that all fathers in the Nordic nations covered in this issue had access to additional leave beyond paternity leave and individualized nontransferable leave. This leave was either a family entitlement that fathers shared with mothers or individualized leave that fathers could transfer to mothers. For fathers to take leave beyond their individualized nontransferable right, they had to be willing to negotiate with mothers so that mothers had less leave. While Nordic fathers in the articles in this issue took for granted that they would take earmarked leave, taking advantage of additional leave was reported as less imaginable. The Finnish researchers concluded that ‘despite positive attitudes towards involved fatherhood, the assumptions about what type of leave fathers and mothers were entitled to were gendered … . What is considered as normal for fathers can set limits to the practices that appear available for them.’ It appears that an effective way to support fathers’ use of more extensive leave would be to increase the length of the highly paid nontransferable leave for fathers, a strategy that Sweden has slowly begun to follow and a path that Norway has experimented with. With more leave that was nontransferable to mothers, these articles suggest that employers would likely have difficulty resisting fathers’ taking longer leaves and fathers would be more inclined to resist the ideal worker norm.

Private vs. public workplaces

The second crosscutting theme in the articles in the special issue was the difference in support for fathers’ leavetaking between private and public workplaces. Other European researchers have also noted that the public sector tends to be a more supportive environment for fathers’ leavetaking than private companies (Geisler & Kreyenfeld, 2018). Private sector companies might be slower than public authorities in supporting fathers’ leavetaking because they are profit-driven and have cost concerns. Private sector companies are also more likely to be male-dominated and therefore have less experience arranging leave, while public sector organizations are accustomed to accommodating leave requests because of the larger number of women that tend to work in that sector.

Norwegian fathers who worked in public workplaces reported that they believed it was much easier to take parental leave in the public sector than the private sector, as one indicated, because ‘public workplaces have to play by the rules.’ The fact that most Scottish fathers took advantage of paternity leave seems likely to be related to the fact that they all worked in a public organization. Fathers who were interviewed mentioned that they realized the public sector was more supportive of family life, with one father explaining: ‘My brother works for a private organization … . you get the feel that families [there] are kind of seen by a lot of people as add-on’s to their real life of work.’ The Swedish study focused only on private workplaces and found that in none of them did the vast majority of fathers take all of their nontransferable leave. The lack of support for fathers’ leave use at private workplaces suggests that much more attention needs to be paid to understanding what might promote the use of statutory leave in those settings.

Two strategies for encouraging private companies to be more supportive of fathers’ leave came up in the research findings of the articles in this special issue. These strategies correspond with the theoretical factors that might influence company support for leavetaking mentioned earlier in this article – economics and gender-related factors. In the Swedish study, a few managers mentioned that a ‘business case’ might be made for supporting fathers’ leavetaking. They mentioned that companies with a good reputation for promoting fathers’ leavetaking could recruit the best candidates and that men who take leave gained new abilities that improved their productivity. One noted that his organization could also learn how to be more flexible with staffing which would enhance its profitability. These economic rationales for the business case for men’s work-family reconciliation have also been suggested by others (e.g. Adame-Sánchez, González-Cruz, & Martínez-Fuentes, 2016; James, 2014; Kossek, Hammer, & Lewis, 2010).

The article on Norway suggests that challenging the gendered assumption that only women should get to take parental leave was another strategy that could be used to pressure companies to support fathers’ leave use. Fathers in Norway embraced their right to leave as something that was ‘fair.’ Focusing on fathers’ social rights to leave could be used more as a rationale for promoting active fatherhood, but as Liebig and Kron (2017) argue, gender equality or social justice are seldom used as rationales to promote men’s ability to combine work and family.

Indirect limits to leavetaking at the workplace

A third theme revealed in the special issue articles was that companies did not place direct limits on fathers’ leavetaking in any of the six countries – after all, fathers’ rights to leave are enshrined in legislation, even if leaves were unpaid or lowly paid. However, we learn from these articles that the workplace still placed significant and consequential indirect limits on fathers’ leavetaking, through the work culture and the way work was organized. Indirect limits were evident in four normative elements of work culture, discussed below.

Work came first

Researchers in this issue found that male employees were expected to have a strong work orientation, and this work orientation was used as an explanation for why fathers would not want to take leave or wanted to take shorter leaves. Finnish researchers conclude that the HR managers they interviewed believed that ‘the importance of work for their employees could be one reason keeping fathers at work instead of taking longer leave.’ A blue-collar father in Sweden who had taken only a few days leave, admitted,

This conversation has made me think … it is so easy to drive in the old wheel tracks, the gal is at home … but why am I not at home? I think probably that I … dear god! Yes, that I thought that my job has been so important!

A Scottish father blamed the workplace for a one-sided focus on work: ‘Fathers seem to be forgotten about as responsible parents.’

Since work was expected to come before family, fathers reported being concerned that taking leave or taking too much leave would suggest that they were not sufficiently committed to their jobs and to their work organizations. Finnish fathers joked about the ‘boundless commitment’ that was expected in their jobs; the researchers suggested that ‘employees may fear that taking “too much” leave would label them as not being sufficiently committed.’ White collar workers in several countries worried that violating the ideal worker norm by taking too much leave might affect the trajectory of their careers. The authors of the Norway article claimed: ‘Even if fathers are legally granted job security, leave may still have negative effects on their careers, particularly in professions where the career logic is strong.’ Workers who feared job insecurity were also less likely to take leave. Those Finnish fathers who were surveyed that had been recently unemployed were less likely to take leave and the authors suggested that ‘these fathers maybe gave priority to holding on to an insecure job instead of taking leave.’

Fathers were responsible for leave planning

A second way organizations set informal limits on fathers’ leave use was that fathers in Finland, Norway and Sweden were expected to figure out themselves how their jobs would get done while they were on leave. The authors of the Norway article explained, ‘The general pattern is that fathers inform their employers of their plans, and then the employers approve it. The plan also includes how their work would be handled in their absence.’ The HR director of one Swedish company reported:

Before a person goes to the manager and says that he will be on parental leave he has solved a lot of things before … who can do what …  … Because a person knows that they are creating a problem for themselves, the manager and their colleagues.

In Finland, the sheer difficulty of coming up with a work plan without organizational support from the company was reported to make leaves longer than the individualized right to leave seem impossible.

A positive spin was often given this arrangement of having fathers come up with their own plans for how the work would be done in their absence, with fathers and managers alike emphasizing that this demonstrated commitment to the job. For example, a Swedish manager said, ‘you must come with your own solutions. But I think that is good … it shows that you think the job is important.’ That the organizing of work while a father was on leave was the responsibility of the father and not the work organization fits with the expectations for the ideal worker. Leavetaking fathers needed to abide by this expectation if they wanted to be involved in caregiving.

Leave arrangements should suit the workplace

A third aspect of the work culture that set informal limits on fathers’ leavetaking was also related to the ideal worker norm. Employers expected fathers to put the needs of the workplace first when they arranged their leaves, especially in terms of timing and length; indeed, use of leave was conditional on the employer’s needs being met. This meant that the job was expected to come first over men’s caregiving role. In the study on Norway, leaves were more commonly arranged during a time of the year when the workload was less. In the Swedish study, leaves were typically organized in short vs longer blocks or men took leave part-time instead of full-time. One Swedish father confided, ‘I would attract attention if I would be gone a longer period, so I take single days here and there instead.’

Another way fathers arranged their leaves to suit the workplace was to agree to do some work from home while on leave. The authors of the article on Norway discussed this as a compromise that fathers needed to engage in as a way to take leave. According to the authors, ‘fathers did not abruptly abandon their job when the leave date came but were prepared to be considerate to the needs of the workplace.’ One Norwegian father reported, ‘I own the data-skills in this firm, so they called and asked for assistance sometimes. We agreed on that.’ A Finnish father explained that he negotiated his leave by agreeing that he would still work toward the achievement of the annual targets, which he managed to do by addressing ‘the most pressing things’ during his leave. The Finnish authors indicated that ‘internalized self-discipline and responsibility for getting the work done seemed to blur the boundaries between work and family time.’

A third way leave arrangements were expected to suit the workplace involved reducing co-worker overload. Since replacements were seldom brought in (discussed below), Nordic fathers were often expected to scale down their plans for leave so they would not cause workmates to experience work overload. Nordic fathers were concerned about making leave arrangements that would least affect their co-workers, since they felt a great deal of solidarity with those they worked with. A Swedish father said, ‘I will hesitate taking as long a leave as my wife has done because I don’t want to cause problems here … a person is a little loyal toward those he works with.’ Co-worker hostility was reported to reduce fathers’ leave use in the Scottish study, when one interviewee reported the typical reaction of co-workers to fathers’ leavetaking: ‘the default thinking is: “I’m going to get screwed with a lot of extra work.”’

Uncertain managerial support

The importance of managerial discretion in fathers’ ability to take leave was a fourth element of the work culture that came up in articles in the special issue. It could not be taken for granted that managers would support men putting family first. In the article on Slovenia, a manager admitted, ‘you have to give the priority to the business.’ In the article on Norway, the authors noted how fathers needed to negotiate with managers in terms of how their leaves would be arranged, sometimes not getting their wishes fulfilled. The Scottish authors concluded that ‘having to initiate negotiations left [fathers] feeling as if they were asking for a favor from their line manager,’ so Scottish fathers seldom took advantage of parenting leave beyond the two-week paternity leave. A white-collar manager in Sweden admitted her feelings about fathers’ taking longer leaves: ‘One is not always jubilant when someone says that they will be away for three months, [you think] “dear god, how will I solve that?”’ Previous research has noted that when managers are less supportive of fathers’ leave use, fathers take less parental leave (Bloksgaard, 2015; McKay & Doucet, 2010).

Research suggests managers often perceive work-family benefits as being in conflict with operational goals (Todd & Binns, 2013). Three articles in the special issue suggest, however, that these goals may not inevitably be in conflict. Authors of the articles about Scotland and Sweden suggested that managers might become more supportive of men as fathers when they recognize how important this is for men’s engagement with work. This seemed to already take place in Norway, where the researchers found that an important reason why companies supported fathers’ use of their leave quota was because ‘in return they can expect employees to be devoted to work and productivity.’

Senior managers could contribute to a work culture that supports fathers use of statutory paternity and parental leaves by modeling use of these policies themselves. Previous research in Norway found that fathers were most likely to take individualized nontransferable leave when their managers had done so (Dahl, Løken, & Mogstad, 2014). However, articles in this issue suggest they took much less leave than other fathers, a finding that has been found in other studies (Halrynjo & Lyng, 2017; Horvath, Grether, & Wiese, 2018; Lewis & Stumbitz, 2017). The Scottish article in this special issue mentions there were few examples of fathers’ use of parental leave at management levels. This was also a prevalent theme in the Swedish article, where fathers reported that the fact that their managers took little leave sent a discouraging signal. A white-collar father who had taken only half the father’s quota said, ‘It would be good if we saw more managers at home with children, then we would know that longer parental leaves are okay … The culture begins with them.’

Work intensification and job specialization

While expectations about the ideal worker embedded in the culture of the work organization were reported to deter fathers from using leave, fathers’ leavetaking was also indirectly limited because they were regarded by managers – and themselves – as too indispensable to take much leave. Indispensability was connected to two important work practices – work intensification and job specialization.

Finnish and Swedish fathers often reported that they felt too busy at work to take leave, a situation that may have been exacerbated by workforce reductions. A Swedish father said,

We must work more than what otherwise goes with the job … I have a daughter, she will soon be three years old … I would have chosen to be at home more, but there is a lot [of work] the whole time.

In Finnish workplaces, work intensification also took the form of work practices being in constant change, requiring fathers to constantly update their skills; fathers thus worried that they could fall behind if they took leave.

Finnish and Swedish fathers were also seen by managers and by themselves as holding such specialized jobs that they could not easily be replaced while on leave. A Swedish white-collar father who had taken only the father’s quota, said: ‘There is no one who has exactly your experience and your qualifications, you are unique … .if a person wants to be away during a longer time then there becomes a big hole to fill.’ This problem also applied to blue-collar workers. A Swedish HR director reported: ‘today each person … .is unique and has their competence, they don’t just push buttons, you understand … it takes years to learn some of those jobs!’

Work intensification and specialization are widely accepted elements of modern work life. However, Gascoigne, Parry, and Buchanan (2015) argue that we should not view these as inescapable characteristics of work organizations but instead as work practices that have developed overtime to conform to traditional gendered expectations for the ideal male worker. These work practices encourage men to accept that they are indispensable at work and have little choice but to place family life at a lower priority.

Lack of infrastructure

Two aspects of infrastructure might help fathers take leave but were lacking in the work organizations discussed in this special issue. The lack of supportive infrastructure reflects the fact that fathers’ work-family reconciliation was not an important strategic issue.

First, there typically was no system for replacing fathers on leave. Of the organizations studied, only one (a Finnish retail company) had ‘routinized channels for recruiting temporary personnel.’ As indicated above, this meant that fathers were typically expected to delegate their work to co-workers, creating a heavier workload for them. Alternatively, fathers agreed to do work from home, come in to work now and then, or let work pile up until their return.

Training and resources for managers that would facilitate their support for fathers taking leave was another aspect of absent infrastructure. Previous research has shown managers are unlikely to promote use of family-supportive work arrangements unless they see this as part of their job, have received training in the task and believe that the organization will hold them accountable (Sweet, Pitt-Catsouphes, & Boone James, 2016). Despite the fact that Swedish fathers have had the right to paid parental leave since 1974, a blue-collar manager complained,

top management could come up with examples of solutions, we know of course that people should be able to be at home with children today, but I think that there isn’t always a foundation in practice for how we fill the gap when someone is away.

Conclusions and suggestions for research

The research in this special issue suggests that policy design makes a difference in how fathers’ rights to leave are perceived at the workplace. When fathers have well-compensated, individualized, nontransferable rights to leave, employers realize they need to facilitate leavetaking more than in situations when fathers’ leave can be transferred to mothers. This type of leave can strengthen men’s entitlement to take time off from being an ideal worker to spend time with their families. However, only a few nations have this type of leave for fathers. More research is needed about what social forces might drive more nations to provide fathers with nontransferable leave.

Work organizations in some countries (e.g. the US) are more active than governments in providing generous leave benefits to fathers. The article about Scotland in this collection suggests that when a work organization does do this, fathers respond positively by taking more leave. However, the article about Spain showed that most companies often do not consider topping up mandatory benefits. Since most countries in the world still provide weak statutory leave benefits to fathers, it is important for researchers to investigate the conditions under which work organizations will top up statutory benefits.

This collection’s articles suggest that it is easier for fathers to take statutory leave in public work organizations than in private companies. There appears to be a strong, perceived conflict between a private company’s economic interests and leavetaking fathers’ violation of the ideal work norm. This conflict needs to be explored further, addressed perhaps by empirically establishing the ‘business case’ for fathers’ leave use or by investigating how a ‘social justice case’ can gain public support that calls for fathers’ having the same opportunities as mothers to care for young children.

Research in this special issue also suggests that companies and fathers alike do not blame fathers’ low use of paternity leave and parental leave on a lack of support at the workplace. Nevertheless, it shows that the workplace presents many formidable indirect obstacles to fathers’ leave use. Insights into these indirect obstacles fills an important gap in our knowledge about why fathers do not take more leave. Fathers’ desires and capabilities in regard to taking statutory leave benefits appear to be shaped and constrained by the norms of the workplace and by work practices that make it difficult for them to leave work with a good conscience. Men typically accept these restraints, labeled here as ‘indirect limitations,’ since they also still tend to adhere to the gendered norm of the ideal worker, who puts work first over family. Future research needs to explore in greater detail these indirect limitations and how fathers interpret them in their decisionmaking about taking leave.

Each study took place within a particular cultural and political context, where interest in gender equality and support for men as active fathers varied. Nevertheless, across all studies and social contexts, gendered expectations for mothers as caregivers and men as workers appeared to still be quite entrenched. Fathers sometimes expressed less interested in sharing parental leave. Management often followed a traditional script and helped to restrict men’s sense of being able to take leave even when they really wanted to do so. They required fathers to make arrangements for organizing their work while they were on leave and they took for granted work practices such as work intensification and specialization that made fathers indispensable at work. Fathers themselves embraced the ideal worker norm and thus were involved in reinforcing workplace culture that called for men’s lesser responsibility for childcare. The articles in this issue suggest that the gendered ideal worker norm is very resistant to change, even when governments provide fathers with individualized rights to well-paid leave. Future research could consider what is likely to challenge gendered expectations for working fathers within work organizations. For example, does the status of women in the organization affect leave expectations for men as fathers? The Finnish article in this special issue found that fathers were more likely to take leave in less male-dominated workplaces. Previous research in Sweden found that the more women employees a company had, and the more women managers a company had, the more they demonstrated formal and informal support for fathers in their caregiving roles. (Haas & Hwang, 2007).

Finally, we need much more research on how work organizations can change work culture and work practices to support active fatherhood. Organizational change involves effective company policymaking and effective implementation of company policies, even when there is strong parental leave legislation. Articles in this issue indicate that few work organizations had a formal policy promoting active fatherhood, even in countries where fathers enjoyed leave benefits for decades. When there is no formal organizational policy supporting fathers’ use of parental leave, the Finnish researchers claim: ‘the more unofficial practices and habitual ways of acting at the workplace, as well as superiors’ gendered assumptions or even own experiences about parental responsibilities, can guide employees’ leave decisions.’ Organizational change research suggests effective formal policy aims to simultaneously promote organizational and employee well-being, presents a clear, compelling vision of the goal and its benefits, is easy to communicate and is appealing to employees (Stouten, Rousseau, & de Cremer, 2018; Whelan-Berry & Somerville, 2010). When it concerns fathers’ leave, this vision would move the organization away from the norm of the ideal male worker without caregiving responsibilities toward the norm of the caregiving employed father.

Formal organizational policy, however, is not sufficient for encouraging more fathers to take parental leave. A Swedish white-collar manager indicated: ‘[Support for fathers’ leave] must be incorporated into the daily work and it must be incorporated into the daily operations, not just be empty words.’ Implementation of progressive organizational policy requires the development of effective steps to achieve the vision on the practical level. Researchers could follow the lead of a growing number of social scientists (e.g. Barbosa et al., 2015; Correll, 2017) interested in changing traditional gender patterns in work organizations by collaborating with organizations on developing and evaluating these practical steps.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Linda Haas is Professor Emerita at Indiana University, USA. Her research focuses on parental leave policy and the impact of social policy on gender equality. Books include Equal Parenthood and Social Policy (1992) and Organizational Change and Gender Equity (with P. Hwang and G. Russell, 2000).

C. Philip Hwang is a Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has edited and authored close to 200 publications, including 13 book volumes of which the most recent are Developmental Psychology (with B. Nilsson, 2011, 3rd edition); Psychology in Our Time (with I. Lundberg, and A.-C. Smedler, 2012) and Group Psychology (with Björn Nilsson, 2014).