Le sfide dei papà

Fathers

Paternity leave, 80% of men consider 10 days inadequate /Paternity leave: success or flop?

As many as 3 out of 5 men would like to have their leave extended from 1 to 3 months in order to be more present at the birth

by Silvia Pagliuca

19 March 2024

4' min read

Key points

The right to be fathers
Cultural Resistance
Working on information
Equilibrium in care activities

4' min read

There is a new generation of men who ask to exercise their right to paternity and who systematically see this right denied. We are talking about fathers who want to be there, to build a daily relationship with their children, making their own contribution to nursery school or visits to the paediatrician. Requests that struggle to cross the narrow channel of compulsory paternity leave. That is: 10 paid days of absence from work, which can be taken from two months before the expected date of birth to five months afterwards. Once these 10 days have passed, parenthood turns, de facto, into maternity, i.e. it is women who become, by right, the main breadwinners of the new arrival in the family.

A practice that, according to the latest survey conducted by the Valore D Observatory and SWG, is totally anachronistic, so much so that almost 80% of men consider the 10-day leave to be 'totally inadequate'. Nearly 3 out of 5 men would like to be able to take paternity leave extended from 1 to 3 months, so as to be more present at the birth (for 38%). 79% of men and 81% of women consider paternity leave to be good for the balance and general well-being of life and of the couple, 77% of men and 80% of women consider it useful for personal growth and development as a parent.

The Right to be Fathers

The new fathers, therefore, reverse the perspective: being able to experience fatherhood and seize the opportunity to create a strong bond with one's children is a right, not a duty. Once again, a very strong sign of the evolution of the times and how the new generations impose a change of pace, determined in large part also by the previous experience.

Many of them, in fact, are children of men who only exercised paternity on Sundays or during the summer holidays. And the confirmation is in the data: 67% of people in the 18-34 age group believe that it is good that fathers can also look after young children, without being stigmatised for it.

Cultural Resistances

Although the sentiment in the country is changing, in fact, resistance remains in a (minority) part of public opinion: 22% of those interviewed by Valore D think that paternity leave should be limited because 'the care of the newborn child is the sole responsibility of mothers in the first months of life'. From here to the child penalty, i.e. motherhood turning into a real career penalty for women, the step is short.

"There is still a lot to be done from a cultural point of view to unhinge those fears that see paternity and maternity leave as a career brake,' comments Barbara Falcomer, Valore D.'s general manager. 'Cultural references must change, and the legislator can do a lot in this regard by providing for equal parental leave, but until then, companies can activate policies that promote shared parenting.

Working on information

A first point is, without doubt, information. Even today, in fact, only 13% of the men sampled know in detail how paternity leave works, to which, let us remember, can be added parental leave, i.e. a period of optional abstention from work of a maximum of 6 months (which can be increased to 7) that the father can take to care for his child up to the age of 12.

Self-employed workers, on the other hand, are entitled to 3 months of compensated parental leave, to be taken within the child's first year of life. Finally, fathers affiliated to the Separate Management Fund (Gestione Separata INPS) have the possibility of requesting 3 months of compensated parental leave to be taken within the twelfth year of the child's life. Three months spread over twelve years: this is one of the many faces of the gender gap and, more generally, of a society built according to unbalanced criteria.

Equilibrium in care activities

If well informed, however, people have no doubts: 7 out of 10 respondents agree that paternity leave can promote gender equality with a better balance in care activities. And here, the role that companies can play is decisive: "Some companies associated with Valore D provide paternity or second-parent leave from 1 to 3 months, the most virtuous ones have equal leave; many companies within welfare projects allow advanced forms of smart-working as a means to better balance private and professional life, others offer counselling support, listening and activate training tools both to enhance the 'soft' skills acquired by new parents, and to update the 'hard' skills and allow an effective and stress-free return to work," Falcomer concludes.

Talking about rights and inclusion, therefore, also means looking at the side of men, enabling step by step a structural change, made up of regulations in step with the times, good business practices, new languages and, above all, the desire to break the mould, proudly questioning outdated and exclusionary practices for each category.