The Sidney Morning Herald (22.08.2019) Australian academics are looking to Iceland when it comes to ways to increase the proportion of fathers who take paternity leave. Asdís Arnalds, from the faculty of social work at the University of Iceland, will give the keynote address at the Australian National University on Thursday about how her country has doubled the proportion of fathers who take paternity leave from 40 per cent to 80 per cent since it was extended from six months to nine months.
The extra three months of paid leave, introduced 19 years ago, is non-transferable to the mother, meaning a family gets six months if the father does not take his three-month quota. Icelandic dads also get paid 80 per cent of their normal wages. In Australia, the federal government provides 18 weeks of parental leave to the primary carer and two weeks to the secondary carer, paid at the same rate as the minimum wage of about $720 per week.
"If the leave is transferable, the mother is usually the one one who uses it," Ms Arnalds said. "It is a really successful policy because fathers are using this leave."
Culture wars in the workplace to blame for gender pay gaps
The discussion about what Australia needs to do to improve access to paid parental leave comes as a new KPMG report finds that the time women take out of work for caring roles has increased as a contributor to the gender pay gap. The report, to be released on Thursday, found that closing the primary drivers of the gender pay gap, is equivalent to $445 million per week, or about $23 billion per year.
It said gender discrimination now accounts for 39 per cent of the gender pay gap, up from 29 per cent between 2014 to 2017. The proportion of the gender pay gap explained by career interruptions and part time employment has also slightly increased.
Blake Woodward from Sydney, who has two children aged two and eight weeks, has just returned to work at PwC after taking seven weeks of parental leave. He said it had given him time to bond with his children.
Taking parental leave meant his wife was able to return to work within a year, and "hit the ground running".
"She was promoted to partner nine months after returning to work. Had I not taken parental leave, she would have missed this window for promotion," he said.
"This was an obvious example within our own family of how men taking parental leave can help reduce the gender pay gap.
"Had I only taken the national average leave of less than two weeks, I would have returned to work sleep deprived, unable to give my 100 per cent at work and ill equipped to provide adequate support at home."
Professor Lyndall Strazdins, from the ANU research school of population health, said Australia was one of the last OECD countries to introduce paid parental leave in 2009.
"We are a fair way from Iceland still," she said. "The Iceland scheme is a modest by European standards.
Only big moves will speed up the end of the unjust gender pay gap
"The evidence is that if you don't have a use-it-or-lose-it scheme the fathers will generally not take it because the pressures of the job will discourage them from taking the leave.
"What fathers bring to child development is unique. They miss their dads when they are working long hours."
Marian Baird, professor of gender and employment relations at the University of Sydney, said almost all eligible women take paid parental leave compared to about 25 to 30 per cent of men.
"There are a lot of other issues we need to address before we get to fathers getting an additional three months of leave," she said.
"It is paid at the minimum wage and we know that is a killer for most people especially when you have a new mouth to feed in the family.
"Employers have accepted men taking one or two weeks of paternity leave but they are not at the point where they are going to willingly agree to them taking three months."