Paternity leave

Paternity leave is an employee benefit that allows a father to take time off from his job after the birth or adoption of their child. Its name is taken from the more established practice of maternity leave, in which a mother takes time off to care for her new child. In the United States, a few employers provide paid time off for those on paternity leave, but these are in the minority. It is much more common for employers to offer only unpaid time off for paternity leave or to allow employees wishing to take paternity leave to use sick leave or vacation time they have accrued for this purpose. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires public agencies and private employers with more than fifty workers to provide eligible employees with twelve weeks of unpaid leave in a year, which may be used to care for sick family members, to handle a personal illness, or to look after a newborn or newly adopted child. For the majority of American parents, however, the utility of FMLA is sharply limited by the fact that it is unpaid, meaning that only those with an alternate source of financial support truly have the option to exercise their right to FMLA.

Brief History

Paternity leave is a relatively new concept and a practice that is not universally available. While American women began entering the workforce in large numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, it was not until the 1980s that the issue of maternity leave began to enter into public forum. The idea of paternity leave has taken still longer to emerge and develop in the United States, beginning in the early twenty-first century, with changing gender roles and norms around work and child care. Several European countries, by contrast, have incentivized parental leave for many years; for example, Sweden changed its maternity leave to an inclusive parental leave in 1974.

One factor that has helped to draw attention to paternity leave in the United States was the decision of Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the social media site Facebook, to take two months of paternity leave after the birth of his first child in 2015; notably, Facebook offers all of its US employees four months’ leave. That year, other major high-tech firms, including Adobe, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Yahoo, also instituted generous paid family leave policies allowing workers to take from several months to up to a year. These new benefits may be an effort to draw and retain talented millennial workers, who tend to expect more work-life balance. Yet having a formal policy alone does not necessarily translate into a corporate culture where new parents feel comfortable taking that leave or, like Zuckerberg, using it to the fullest. Nonetheless, those who favor paternity leave saw Zuckerberg’s very public move as a positive example for other new fathers.

The year 2015 also saw federal employees receive six weeks’ paid leave to care for a new child and the introduction of the FAMILY Act, which would pay a portion of a worker’s wages while on FMLA through payroll tax. The states of California, New Jersey, Washington, and Rhode Island have passed legislation mandating paid leave.

Overview

The issue of taking paternity leave raises a number of concerns for those considering that course of action. Perhaps the most obvious concern is the fear that taking paternity leave will result in losing one’s job. Although FLMA expressly protects an eligible worker from being terminated for taking that approved time off, about 12 percent of private-sector workers met the FMLA eligibility requirements (employer size or hours worked) in 2015, according to the Labor Department, meaning such job protection is not available to most new parents. At the same time, there is a growing national emphasis on maintaining high levels of productivity and remaining connected by e-mail or phone outside standard business hours.

Another concern is that a new father who takes paternity leave may find that his career suffers in other ways, such as being passed over for a promotion or excluded from certain types of projects. In some work environments, there is strong pressure to focus on work issues first and foremost, to the exclusion of all other considerations. In such settings, others, including supervisors, may perceive a father taking paternity leave as evidence that he is not really committed to the job. This can affect the selection process for various types of advancement opportunities or responsibilities, on the assumption that someone with young children might not be able to perform those duties well. While such discrimination is illegal when practiced openly and explicitly, this behavior can occur in ways too subtle to detect or verify.

Some studies have shown negative financial consequences associated with the use of paternity leave. A 2013 University of Oregon study found that the lifetime earnings of those who take paternity leave are roughly 15 percent lower than the earnings of those who never took paternity leave. While some might view this as evidence of punitive consequences imposed on the takers of paternity leave, the study’s researchers suggest that when fathers use their paternity leave to spend time with their newborn children, this creates a deep and permanent bond between father and child, a bond that compels these fathers to devote more of their time and energy to the immediate needs (physical, psychological, and emotional) of their children and spouse and less to the demands of the workplace.

Gender role stereotypes about childrearing can inhibit some fathers from using paternity leave. They may fear that they will be perceived as less masculine or less capable because caring for children, educating them, and maintaining the home are considered "women’s work." According to another gender stereotype, men lack the instinctive emotional connection to a child that a mother purportedly possesses and are innately more violent, aggressive, and impulsive; thus, those who believe this stereotype fear that the father may injure the child, whether through negligence, ignorance, or deliberate aggression.

Yet, overall, being able to take paternity leave is an opportunity for which both men and women have long waited and that is at last becoming available to larger numbers of people as legal, economic, and social barriers come down. A 2014 Boston College survey found that 89 percent of fathers rate paid parental leave as an important benefit for employers to offer, suggesting that American men are becoming aware of the numerous potential benefits of the practice. Research in Canada and Scandinavia shows that domestic labor is shared more equitably months later in opposite-sex households where the father took paternity leave early on. Increased bonding between father and child, men’s greater awareness of health, higher lifetime earnings for working mothers, and lower risk of maternal illness and depression are among other lasting benefits to those families in which the father can and does take paternity leave. Businesses that offer parental leave to fathers also can enjoy greater employee retention, attendance, and productivity when their workers return from parental leave.

Bibliography

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