News
Fathers Switch Workplace For Nursery
Posted: June 19, 2007
British fathers are putting their careers on hold so they can spend more time picking the kids up from school and reading bedtime stories.
New research from the bank ING Direct reveals that almost half of dads (43 per cent) have had to put the brakes on their careers and are increasingly turning down over-time and promotions, or even taking salary cuts, so that they can be at home more.
And the financial impact is significant, with these dads forfeiting an average £2,800 [€4,000] a year in salary cuts - that's £4.7bn [€6.5bn] in total.
Overall 4.5 million fathers now share childcare responsibilities equally with their partners, and of these four in ten say they have changed jobs in order to reduce their working hours.
In order to be at home more:
- one in ten has opted for a part-time post
- nearly one in three (29 per cent) has refused over-time
- one in twenty has turned down a salary increase
Lindsay Sinclair, CEO, ING Direct said; "Modern men are choosing to put their careers on hold in order to balance work with bringing up their children."
The report also shows that despite changes in the Work and Families Act which recognises Britons' maternity and paternity rights, a significant number of employers struggle to accept the trend for working dads to embrace childcare responsibilities past paternity leave.
More than a third of dads say their bosses are unsupportive of their childcare responsibilities. As a result they encounter a range of barriers in the workplace, including being excluded from important business decisions, complaints of not working long enough hours, or being overlooked for promotion.