Working dads article features in WeAreTheCity
WOMBA Director, Alison Green, writes for WeAreTheCity about how working dads are breaking down barriers to gender equality.
For working dads, COVID-19 considerably changed their relationship with work and family.
Not only did it prove to be an awakening – with many dads for the first time appreciating the challenges of juggling work and childcare – it was also a period that showed parents a different and better way forward. Now, many have no intention of returning to the outdated, pre-pandemic routines that prove to be barriers to a healthy work-family balance.
And yet, despite dads wanting to participate more actively in family life, our joint research study with Hult International Business School (Ashridge) – exploring how working parents experience the transition to parenthood in an organisational context – found that many have found it difficult to take on a greater parental role.
We found that dads are frustrated and angry with a parental leave system that is not designed for them. In fact, one interviewee explained that confusion with his HR team over paternity leave policy lasted two months and to resolve it, he needed to obtain legal advice. Unhelpful assumptions and generational biases, including those of men as breadwinners and women as the primary caregivers, present further obstacles for fathers wanting to take leave or have more flexibility.