Daddy Dearest

A new poll published by Aviva this Wednesday suggests that there has been a ten-fold rise in stay-at-home dads over the past decade. With the election campaign in full swing and each party keen to win over the ‘mums net’ and ‘motorway man’ vote, all the main parties are advocating more flexible working despite the very challenging economic and jobs market. Of course there are differences in the approaches of the main parties – particularly around sharing maternity leave and who should have the right to request flexible working. But one thing that remains the same is that when politicians use ‘parents’, they are really thinking about ‘mums’.

The introduction of paid paternity leave in the UK is a fantastic achievement, but it’s only two weeks, whilst paid maternity leave is nine months. We know who policy makers think should be at home. And most ‘family friendly’ proposals still imply that whilst roles are changing men are the primary breadwinners and women the primary carers. We will only see major changes in the way jobs and home life work together when men are routinely able to, and then actually make, the same kinds of changes to their working lives as women do when they become parents. Unless men are able and prepared to step up, we will always have a gender pay gap and women will always play second fiddle in the work place.

Kate Stanley

Fixing our 'unfriendly' family culture

There’s a line in the Conservative’s Draft Manifesto that caught my eye. It says “Britain is one of the least family-friendly countries in the developed world. This will change with a Conservative government.”

It’s a phase that has every chance of making it into the final version. The Conservatives know that on many indicators – relationship breakdown, risky behaviour by teenagers, the emotional well-being of children – Britain does not score well.

But it’s not altogether clear that they understand how to improve Britain’s family-friendliness. Most of the trends associated with Britain’s poor family record have been shaped by rampant individualism and consumerism, our tendency to act selfishly and fetishise making money over making time for one another.

Labour’s response in government has been to launch a thousand policy initiatives, to make it a bit easier for families to live within this culture, rather than challenging the culture itself. But this is really a sticking plaster approach – it doesn’t address the bigger problem.

Could politicians do more to make us influence our unfriendly family culture? Here are three things politicians could do during the election to make a start:

1. Politicians need to talk about why family life matters. It’s important not just because it produces better children but because relationships sustain us all.
2. Policies need to address the real issues. The problem with the debate about whether or not you support marriage through the tax system is that it takes an important issue – relationship breakdown – and reduces it to a discussion about financial transactions. Relationships aren’t breaking down because people can’t see the monetary benefit of staying together.
3. Finally, politicians could make family life more visible in politics. I don’t mean by parading your children (or even your pregnant wife) but by demonstrating that time spent with your family matters, by bringing people into the next cabinet who are allowed to work part-time to balance their work and family life and by contemplating better ways to fitting the demands of a job to family life, rather than vice versa. A new cabinet with job share ministers? Now there’s a thought.

Lisa Harker, co-director, ippr