HR Dilemma: Should fathers get longer paternity leave?

Working fathers are facing discrimination, as their employers turn down their requests for flexible hours. Outdated attitudes are preventing fathers from spending more time with their families, whilst also forcing working mothers to put their careers on the backfoot - The Telegraph reports.

Margot James, the Business Minister, described the actions as discriminatory. She told MPs at the Women and Equalities Committee: “One of the reasons employers are less generous to fathers is that they are not so sure of their legal obligations to fathers as they are to mothers,” she said. “They think they can stand in the way more of what fathers need to do at home, and that is wrong.”

The minister also found that shared parental leave is under-utilised, despite being introduced three years ago. “At the moment I think take-up is disappointing, it is under 10%,” she said. “I would regard 25% as successful, anything over 20% as very encouraging, I don’t think we are going to see those figures.”

She added that an evaluation of the scheme will look at the types and categories of companies and fathers who are and are not taking shared leave, as well as “the barriers that fathers face” in asking for leave.