Transcript Nada Stropnik and Nataša Kump Institute for Economic

Nada Stropnik and Nataša Kump
Institute for Economic Research, Ljubljana, Slovenia
[email protected], [email protected]
Fathers' take-up of leave in Slovenia
9th LPR annual seminar
Ljubljana, 13-14 September 2012
Acknowledgement:
This presentation uses the database of the “Research Project on the Influence of Current Family Policy Measures on Deciding to
Have Children”, financed in 2010 by the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia.
Research questions
• Which factors/characteristics increase the likelihood that fathers
will take paternity leave?
• What are the reasons for not having taken more days of paternity
leave?
Data
Survey on the impact of family policy measures on deciding to have
children
•
•
•
•
Conducted in Slovenia in June 2010
Focused on gender issues and parental/paternity leave
Computer supported telephone survey
1,013 persons aged 20-49 years
(sample representative by sex/age, education, statistical region)
Determinants of the take-up
of paternity leave
Predictors
Child birth order
Child-related tasks index
Household work index
25-29
30-34
Father's age at the time of birth of
35-39
the youngest or only child
40-49
45+
20-24
25-29
Mother’s age at the time of birth
30-34
of the youngest or only child
35-39
40-49
Married
Lower secondary or less
Vocational secondary
Father's education
Higher secondary
Post-secondary
Lower secondary or less
Vocational secondary
Mother's education
Higher secondary
Post-secondary
Full-time employment
Self-employment
Father's employment status
Not in employment
Full-time employment
Part time employment
Mother's employment status
Self-employment
Not in employment
only or youngest child
born in 2003-2005
˂500 inhabitants
Settlement size
500-7,000 inhabitants
˃7,000 inhabitants
Grandmother in the same household
Constant
c2
df
% of fathers who have taken paternal leave
*p<.05. ** p<.01. ***p<.001.
B
-0.14
0.363
0.355
SE B
0.231
2.54
2.169
-0.043
0.347
0.793
1.15
-0.502
0.711
0.836
0.928
1.237
1.037
-1.792 **
-2.508 **
0.7
-0.084
0.197
0.231
0.618
0.816
1.525
0.479
0.954
0.301
-0.005
1.32
0.414
0.156
0.923
0.324
0.101
0.137
-0.198
-1.529
0.678
0.808
-0.129
-1.319
-1.012 *
0.755
1.199
0.51
OR
0.869
1.437
1.426
1
0.958
1.415
2.21
3.159
0.605
1
0.167
0.081
2.015
0.919
1.218
1.26
1
0.995
3.742
1.513
1
1.106
1
0.82
0.217
1
0.879
0.267
0.363
-1.589 ***
0.455
0.204
-0.226 ***
-2.001 **
-0.38
0.586
0.561
0.135
0.684
1
2.873
-0.285 ***
-0.054
1.055
3.752
65.01
27
75.2
0.622
Marginal effect
-0.02
0.052
0.05
-0.006
0.049
0.113
0.164
-0.071
-0.255 **
-0.357 **
0.1
-0.012
0.028
0.033
-0.001
0.188
0.059
0.014
-0.028
-0.217
-0.018
-0.188
-0.144 *
0.15
N
34.78
96.13
41.53
31.23
22.43
14.04
77.26
81.74
44.40
8.65
27.55
72.43
75.49
50.64
14.33
53.62
67.36
90.80
178.71
0.39
27.23
147.20
16.77
4.65
57.48
95.94
73.95
56.20
53.61
Comments (1)
•
•
•
•
Due to high take-up of paternity leave in Slovenia, significant impact on the
likelihood that fathers will take that leave was found only for a couple of variables.
Mothers aged 30-39 years at the birth of the youngest or only child are
significantly less likely that those aged 25-29 years to have a partner who took
parental leave.
Only if the mother is not in employment, the father is significantly less (by 14%)
likely to take paternity leave than if she is fully employed. It may be that these
fathers do not feel any need to care for their own very young children since
mothers are not employed, or that their employment/work characteristics do not
permit or make it easy for them to take the leave. It is also probable that, with only
one of the parents in employment, the couples (or men) do not want to risk the
father’s job if a negative employer’s reaction is foreseen.
Fathers who are not in employment are also less - though not significantly (p <
0.06) - likely than those in full employment to take paternity leave.
Comments (2)
•
•
Taking paternity leave became more “normal”, expected, accepted and thus
widespread in the period 2006-2010, that is, a year after its full implementation.
The likelihood for fathers to take the leave in 2003-2005 was significantly (by 23%)
lower. Obviously, it took fathers some time to get acquainted with their
entitlement, find out what might be the co-workers and employer’s reactions, and
be able and ready to apply for it.
As expected, fathers living in the smallest settlement category, i.e. settlements
with less than 500 inhabitants, are significantly less (by 0.29 percentage points)
likely to take the leave than those living in the largest settlement category, i.e.
settlements with more than 7,000 inhabitants. This may be due to a lower
"visibility" of individuals in large settlements, so men on leave are not that
"exposed" in public as they are in smallest settlements. It may also be that men and also women - living in largest settlements are more progressive in their
attitudes and expectations regarding gender roles, and that there are more
women with (high) professional aspirations, which requires higher father's
involvement in care for the child.
Reasons for not having taken more days of paternity leave
% of positive answers (N=211)
I/he did not know about all provisions
14,0
I/he knew about the provisions, but did not seriously
consider them
44,6
Financially we could not afford more unpaid leave
51,3
In my/his view, fathers can not be useful in the care of
a small child
6,6
Co-workers, friends, acquaintances would make fun of
me/him
1,2
Employer was not in favour of that.
Due to that I/he might have lost my/his job/work
27,1
12,7
I/he will use it later on
22,1
Due to the nature of my/his work, I/he does not need
to (officially) take paternity leave
26,4
Comments (1)
•
•
•
•
Two main reasons for not having taken more days of paternity leave were identified: 1)
financially, the family could not afford more unpaid leave, and 2) the father did not seriously
consider the provisions, although he knew about them. Starting with the 16th calendar day
of the paternity leave the beneficiaries do not receive the compensation of their net salary.
Not all families can afford 2.5 months without (one of the) earnings, but it also might be an
excuse at hand for those fathers who, for various reasons - like uncertainty, feeling of not
being able to care for a small child, etc. - do not dare or wish to stay at home with their child.
Also, some may not consider themselves being in a position to do so due to the constraints
related to workplace or employer, or unemployment risk and similar.
The proportion of insufficiently informed fathers (14%) may seem quite high. However, all
fathers who did not know about all provisions actually used 15 days of paid paternity leave.
Fathers who knew about provisions but did not seriously consider them (almost 45%!), and
those who share the view that fathers can not be useful in the care of a small child, do not
really understand the purpose of the paternity leave and should be better informed about
that, or even educated on the subject.
Since 75 days of the paternity leave may be taken until the child’s age of 3 years, there are
about 22% of fathers who intended to use them later on. Over four out of five of these
fathers have already used some of the paternity leave.
Comments (2)
•
•
•
A very positive and surprising finding is that only about 1% of fathers did not take more days
of paternity leave because of possible stigma, i.e. fear that co-workers, friend and/or
acquaintances would make fun of them. This proves a general acceptability of the father’s
active role in taking care of the child.
However, employers do have impact on take-up of paternity leave, particularly those in the
private sector. If they are not in favour of their male employee’s absence, fathers tend to
deprive themselves - and indirectly their children as well - of that entitlement; about 27% of
fathers in the sample acted so. This is a particularly sensitive issue during the economic
recession or crisis, which we have been witnessing in Slovenia since 2009. About a fifth of
fathers did not take more days of the paternity leave because of the risk of loosing their jobs
(employees) or work (the self-employed).
More than a quarter of fathers could combine work and family obligations without formally
taking the leave. Interestingly, 85% of these fathers are full-time employees with obviously
quite flexible work arrangements. A similar kind of reasons were given under "other": the
father spends quite a lot of his time at home; due to flexible work or because of being selfemployed he may occasionally take a day off without formally being on leave.
A non-answered question
How many mothers were/are indeed willing to share (some of) the
leave that is family entitlement with the child’s father?
This is particularly rarely probable in the countries where the whole of
the mother's and family entitlement is less than about half a year.
The same question was raised by Sundstrom and Duvander (2002)
(and also brought out by Lappegard 2008) who argued that the
father's parental leave is residual to the mother's. Consequently,
the father is allowed or persuaded to use some leave when the
mother chooses to return to work.
This is the issue to investigate before we blame fathers for not taking
parental leave.
“Fathers are men, whose children have mothers”
(Højgaard, 2001)