PAID PARENTAL LEAVE... IT’S A (DAD)JOKE!
C lementine and Tom were thrilled to be expecting their first child. Both worked at large corporate law firms with generous paid parental leave (PPL) policies, so the Melbourne-based couple mapped out how they would manage the adjustment to a family of three. Clementine would take six months off, Tom would take three and once their baby was nine months old they would each work four days a week and arrange childcare.
Clementine’s bosses were delighted when she told them she was pregnant and approved her request for six months’ parental leave on the spot. Yet when Tom told his male boss he wanted to take three months paid parental leave, he was told, “We have that policy but no dads have actually used it. It wouldn’t be good for your career to take that much time off”. Tom was shocked. “The policy existed but the expectation was clearly that Clem – or mums in general – would take time off,” he says.
For the vast majority of Australian families, the male breadwinner paradigm remains dominant, even in 2019. “The use of parental leave by fathers and male partners in Australia is very low by global standards,” says Emma Walsh, CEO of Parents-at-Work. “Not only was Australia one of the last countries to introduce a policy but we offer one of the least generous schemes among OCED nations.”
In the UK,
