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Description
Polish law allows mothers and fathers to share the 12-month paternal leave. Despite that, only ca. 1% of dads decide to take it (ZUS data, 2020). It leads, among others, to inequality of chances on the labour market for both genders. We intend to change it. The new EU work-life balance directive aiming at activating women professionally by engaging fathers in childrearing to a larger extent provides very important context to our efforts – it is necessary to organise in-depth social consultations of the directive and to understand why parents in Poland do not want to share parental leaves now. We do not want the directive to be just a ‘dead’ regulation, but we want it to become a real tool promoting parental and gender equality in a wider social context. We will address the above challenges by conducting among parents and parents-to-be a qualitative research on their knowledge about parental leaves, perception of the idea of sharing them by moms and dads, obstacles that might occur, as well as activities that are necessary in this field. We will organise an Oxford debate on this topic, as well as 10 online workshops for parents and parents-to-be on legal and psychological aspects of parenthood in partnership. We will invite both supporters and critics of equal share in parental leaves, since we wish to understand arguments brought up by both sides. Based on data gathered, we will compile a report on parents’ attitudes and will complement it with the analysis of the Islandic model of sharing the parental leave (one with the longest history) that will be created by our partner, the University of Island. The report, along with information on advantages of the work-life balance directive, will be sent to the media and politicians representing all parties.
Summary of project results
Polish law allows both mothers and fathers to take a parental leave. Nevertheless, only 1% of men take advantage of this option (according to the Social Insurance Institution data, 2021). It affects, among others, inequality of opportunities on the labour market for both genders. We wish to change it. The new work-life balance EU directive was an important context to our initiative. It aims at ensuring equal opportunities for men and women on the labour market by engaging men in taking paternal leaves. There was a need for through social consultations of the directive and understanding why parents in Poland do not want to share parental leaves. We did not want the directive to be just a ’dead’ regulation in Poland, but a real tool supporting parental and gender equality in a wider social context.
We addressed these challenges by running qualitative research among parents and parents-to-be on their knowledge on parental leaves, perception of sharing them between moms and dads, obstacles that might occur, and activities that need to be taken up in this area. We run two Oxford debates devoted to this topic (one for mothers, and one for fathers), and eleven online workshops with parents and parents-to-be on legal and psychological aspects of parenting partnership. Based on data gathered, we created a report devoted to parents’ attitudes and complemented it with the analysis of the Islandic model of the parental leave split (one with the longest story). The description of the model was prepared by our partner, namely the University of Iceland. The report, along with information on benefits resulting from the work-life balance directive for women, men, children, and the society was sent to the media and politicians representing all political parties.
In the evaluation survey conducted after the workshops, participants claimed they had raised their skills on parental rights, including the possibility to share the parental leave. Moreover, we managed to discuss the directive with ca. sixty politicians. The directive itself has not been introduced yet, probably due to numerous amendments submitted, including our suggestions.
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Summary of bilateral results
Bilateral cooperation worked very well.It supported the project with a key element -. bilateral partner (the University of Iceland) provided key research-supported arguments on equality in parental care, and these are the results of research from 20 years of equality social policy in Scandinavian countries (not only Iceland, but also Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland). The research also included a group of immigrants from Poland as beneficiaries of equality policies, and found that 77% of male fathers living in Iceland take paternity leave, 60% of them in full and 17% in some part. The average for Iceland as a whole is 80%. The research covered 2021, when each father was entitled to 4.5 months of paternity leave. Now that time has been extended even further, nevertheless, back in 2021, the research showed the benefits of the policy for everyone (children, fathers, mothers, etc.).Now that the EU directive on this issue has come into force and there are studies available for this, it is all the easier to organize activities to convince people of equality in parenting.There is also an idea to continue the project in the form of qualitative research among those fathers in Iceland who have decided to take paternity leave (including, of course, immigrants from Poland).