Does Paternity Leave Hurt Women?

Does Paternity Leave Hurt Women?

By Rachel Emma Silverman

Fathers often talk the talk about sharing parenting duties with mothers when it comes to a newborn. But a new study finds that couples who profess to believe in equally-shared parenting rarely do so in practice. The researchers surveyed 181 married, heterosexual, tenure track professors with children under age two. All of the professors had access to paid parental leave. Each survey participant was asked how their handling of about 25 child-care tasks compared with their spouse’s handling of the same tasks. Among the tasks: changing child’s diapers; taking child to doctor; feeding the child; staying home from work to care for the child; giving child a bath. (See the full list on page 21 of the study.) The majority of professors – both male and female, particularly the women – held the view that men and women should share child care duties. But only three of 109 male faculty members surveyed reported that they did half or more of the care, while 70 of 73 women reported doing at least half–even when both spouses worked full time. The study found that female professors who take paid maternity leave spent most of their time off to focus on infant care, including breastfeeding. Male professors, on the other hand, used their paid paternity leaves to focus on things other than infant care, such as research and publishing papers.
The study also found that women enjoyed doing child care work more than men. “Our results suggest that one reason why female professors do more child care may be that they like it more than men do,” the researchers wrote in the study. “This conclusion is possible even though the vast majority of female respondents and a clear majority of male respondents believe that husbands and wives should share child care equally. Gender ideology about care may be less important than feelings on these matters.”
The study, in the January issue of the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, was conducted by Steven Rhoads, a political scientist at the University of Virginia and his son, Christopher Rhoads, an assistant professor of education at the University of Connecticut. (One caveat: the survey of the professors was done in 2001 — and ideas about gender and parenting may have changed over the last decade.) (Our fellow WSJ blog, Ideas Market, also has a take on the research here.) The researchers say that offering paid paternity leave might actually serve to advance men more than women because men tend to use the time for professional work. While only about 12% of men currently utilize their post-birth leave option, the study finds, “if men should begin to take leave in much larger numbers, far from leveling the playing field, gender-neutral, post-birth leaves are likely to tilt the field further in favor of men.” One could also argue, though, that paternity leave offers men the opportunity to learn to do more at-home and child-care tasks — and true equality in the workplace will never occur unless there is home equality as well.