What Do Dads Actually Do on Paternity Leave?
A new study of tenure-track professors suggests that men in academia use their paternity leave to work (finishing articles, conducting research, and so forth) while women, surprise surprise, spend their time doing the bulk of child care because we're wired that way. This study, conducted by a father-son team of professors, Steven E. Rhoads and Christopher H. Rhoads, also suggests that paternal leave be restricted so dads don't take advantage of the time and use it for things like work.
The Rhoads team states that “it appears that we should seriously consider restricting paid post-birth leaves in academia to women.” In their research, participants were asked about 25 specific child-care tasks; the men and women agreed that women did the bulk of the work. In 24 of 25 of the cases, women also confessed to enjoying the tasks more. (This WSJ blog offers a handy summary of the study.)
The study focuses on academia, but it's a pervasive issue across a variety of careers. Yet in my limited experience, men I know who were granted paternity leave (a rare luxury) used the time not to work but to enjoy fatherhood and to do their fair share. I think men should get more time off, not less. I had 12 weeks off when Andy was born; Brian had two. He would have loved more time to bond with Andrew, but, well, we needed his paycheck. So back downtown he went, and I was left home alone with an infant and daytime TV. And, while Brian's workplace is fairly flexible with taking time off for child-care duties like doctors' appointments and sick days, I still do the bulk of it because I work from home. The system just isn't set up for Brian to be able to do more.
Wouldn't it be nice if men and women were each granted 12 weeks paid, mandatory parental leave? How much time off did you get, and how did you spend it?
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