In Norway and Sweden, the paid parental leave after
childbirth has one component that is exclusive to the mother and one shared
between parents. Advocates of gender equality in the workplace have been
critical of the parents’ ability to give all the leave to the mother and
encouraged by the fact that most parents decide to let the father take some
time off to care for the child. But think about this for a moment: If paid
maternal leave is a major accomplishment of the movement for equal rights and
opportunities for women in the workplace, does it make sense to let fathers
take some of it?
Research by Irene Padavic, Robin Ely, and Erin Reid in Administrative Science Quarterly suggests that sharing family leave benefits
across genders is exactly the way to achieve greater equality in the workplace.
Yes, much research has shown that women have disadvantages and that these grow
greater after childbirth. The idea of a work-family conflict that needs to be addressed
by providing various benefits to women and especially mothers is grounded in
this observation. But firms unwittingly use these benefits in ways that stall
women’s careers and prevent changes that could create less-demanding work
conditions for both men and women as well as greater equality in opportunities.
First, the various benefits to make the workplace more
flexible and adapted to provide work-family balance are typically oriented
toward making it easier for working women to fulfill the wife and mother roles,
which in a typical family handle much more of the housework than the husband
and father roles. In practice, that means that the workplace allows women to
work fewer hours and move to internal-facing roles, which in turn makes them
less promotable and even stigmatizes them as recipients of benefits. In Padavic,
Ely, and Reid’s research from a global consulting firm, women took 11 years to
be promoted to partner, while men took 9 years. And this disparity applies only
to those women who got as far as promotion: at the partner level, only 10
percent were women.
Second, it was widely recognized that women in this firm had
less successful careers than men, but management in the firm emphasized that
this stemmed from the nature of the work, which simply did not fit women’s
needs to achieve a good work-family balance. Indeed, the firm was seen as
accommodating these needs quite well because it offered women alternative job
paths involving less demanding work schedules and less travel. The implication
was that if women did the same work as men (putting in the same hours and
accepting the same heavy travel requirements), they could do equally well.
Third, managers did not recognize that the firm’s work
schedules, unrealistic deadlines, and demand for employees to be available 24/7
were as burdensome for men and equally disruptive to their family lives as they
were for women. The belief that the bond between mother and child is special and
much more important to maintain than the bond between father and child was so
firm that evidence showing how the work hours and travel schedules
disadvantaged male workers too was dismissed. Everyone “knew” that this was “women’s
problem,” so the firm was doing enough by catering to women’s needs for family
time.
Discrimination is actions based on beliefs. There is a
distinction between the belief that women are not fit for work and the belief
that women have greater needs for a work-family balance than men, but it is a
small distinction. In both cases the result is discrimination and stalled
careers, and it doesn’t help anyone that the second kind of belief and
discrimination seems more considerate than the first.
Padavic, I., R. J. Ely, and E. M. Reid
2019. "Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work–family Narrative as a Social Defense against the 24/7 Work Culture." Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming.
