Workplace culture and masculine norms are preventing dads from asking for flexible working hours including paid parental leave, new research suggests.
University of South Australia researcher Dr Ashlee Borgkvist has investigated barriers and facilitators for men to access and use flexible work arrangements.
She found that many fathers felt pressure from their organisations not to use flexibility for family reasons, with this sentiment also echoed across societal norms.
Australia has one of the lowest rates of fathers taking paid parental leave.
Dr Borgkvist says the low uptake of formal flexible working arrangements by Australian fathers is primarily due to a perceived, and quite often objective, lack of support from workplace managers and colleagues.
“Workplace flexibility is typically accepted as an option for mothers, but when it comes to dads, flexibility is unlikely to be as readily accepted – and in some cases not even considered,” she said.
“Workplace and societal norms play a big role in the lack of flexibility for dads, with many men feeling pressure to conform to stereotypical concepts of the male ‘breadwinner’.”
Dr Borgkvist said while Australia’s national Paid Parental Leave scheme is gender neutral, the stigma of asking for flexibility, along with the need for mothers to utilise the whole Paid Parental Leave period, is limiting its uptake by dads.
“One father I spoke to said he’d stepped back from visiting schools with his wife and child because he felt he’d taken too much time off; another father said he wouldn’t ask for flexibility because he didn’t ‘want to be seen as ‘someone who tries to get out of doing work’.
“So, while the desire and need for flexible work hours is there, it’s being squashed by restrictive workplace cultures. As you can imagine, these ideas around flexible work also have impacts for how women who use flexibility are perceived within workplaces.”
Dr Borgkvist said cultural change was vital.
“Evidence shows that when fathers are provided with well-compensated, targeted and extended parental leave, they are very likely to take it.”
