More parental leave for fathers
Why don't more men take time off work when their children are born?
Canadian men take far less time off than women to care for children. According to Statistics Canada, 90% of women outside of Quebec take leave, both paid and unpaid, after having a child. In Quebec, 99% of women take time off. Outside of Quebec, only 26% of men take parental leave, even though they're entitled to up to 35 weeks off.
The YWCA of Metro Vancouver has a recommendation to balance things out.
Extend parental leave benefits to 18 months, but set aside six of those months just for men.
Chantelle Krish is the Manager of Advocacy and Public Relations for YWCA Metro Vancouver. She says setting aside more time for men to stay at home would level the playing field.
Having more dads take more time to be at home helps to balance the distribution of work at home for parents, and it also enables women to fully participate in the labour force.- Chantelle Krish, YWCA Metro Vancouver
Krish believes that making leave time available just for men would shift some of the cultural expectations around a man's role in raising a family. She believes it would also make employers more willing to encourage fathers to take time off.
When executives and bosses and supervisors play more of an active role with their families, or encourage their staff to do the same thing, there's a higher uptake for fathers to follow suit.- Chantelle Krish, YWCA Metro Vancouver
Chantelle Krish explains to Jim Brown that they'd like to see parental leave extended to 18 months in this country, with the extra six going exclusively to dads.
Krish says the concept would not just make life easier for parents, but would improve the lives of children, pointing to academic research suggesting developmental benefits for children who see their fathers take more of an active role in home life, such as cooking and cleaning and child-care.
We also played some CBC Archive tape as part of this segment, from a 1967 report about women entering the workforce-- and those who chose to stay home. If you want to watch the whole story, you can find it here.