Another step towards gender equality

It is standard practice that when a woman gives birth, she gets some time off as maternity leave. Here in the UK, a woman can get 52 weeks off, with 39 of them paid. Men, however, were only given two weeks.

Various academics and researchers have commented on the fact that extended maternity leave can actually damage gender equality (ie for women) in the workplace.

Ann-Zofie Duvander says:

The flexibility of the Swedish system, which still has extensive transferable leave rights, has the consequence that the lion’s share of parental leave days is still taken by mothers, among other things making it difficult for women to compete on equal terms with men in the labour market. Consequently, the gender-based division of parental leave may contribute to a preservation of traditional gender roles and inequalities.

Laura van Dulk's paper:

Argues that if work-family arrangements are only available to women or if men do not use the existing facilities, inequality in the labour market will be maintained rather than reduced.

The New York Times blames pay inequality in Germany:

Maternity leave is another [reason for pay inequality]: men get promoted while their female colleagues take time off to have children.

However, here in the UK, men are going to be allowed to take the same length of time as women for paternity leave. They'll get 6 months leave, which will allow the women to use 6 months leave and return to work earlier.

I may or may not argue with the idea that you have to spend every waking minute with your newborn child until he/she is a year old, but I do not argue with the idea that women should not bear responsibility for this alone. If women want to be equal with men, it means dragging themselves out of the kitchen and home and into the workplace. And in order to do this, you need to drag men out of the workplace and into the home. While I doubt that all men will utilise all of the time allotted, it will certainly help.