One year after the introduction of the work-life balance directive, i.e. the balance between professional and private life, we are moving in the right direction. The directive gave fathers additional parental leave. At the beginning, only a percentage of eligible people used it. Now it is seven percent.
– Some of my colleagues asked whether I really knew what I was getting into and whether it was a conscious decision – reports Andrzej Kubisiak, deputy director of the Polish Economic Institute. Today he answers these questions not only as a dad, but also as an expert. It has been a year since fathers were given the opportunity to take additional parental leave.
For years, only a percentage of fathers took parental leave, that is, only four thousand Poles a year. The regulations changed a year ago and now there are seven percent of such fathers, i.e. almost twenty thousand.
Not all fathers on parental leave take care of their children
– In fact, such progress in one year is quite a good result – admits Mariusz Jedynak, member of the management board of the Social Insurance Institution. Data shows that Polish fathers take an average of seven weeks of parental leave. Does everyone take care of the children then? Not everyone.
However, experts are not worried about this, because they look with hope at the pioneers of paternity leave – Scandinavia. – In Norway, at the beginning they called this holiday “fishing”, because fathers said: “they will be able to go fishing”. Years later, we saw that they were using this leave to be with their children. We are convinced that it will be the same in Poland – comments Karolina Andrian from the “Share the Care” Foundation.
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New labor law regulations regarding the so-called work-life balanceTVN24
Andrzej Kubisiak sees benefits in this not only as a father and husband, but also as an analyst. – Where fathers are involved, in the first year of their children's lives, women are less affected later by the wage gap, and therefore by discrimination in terms of remuneration – says the deputy director of the Polish Economic Institute.
The more children a woman has, the less often she is employed
Motherhood pushes women out of the labor market, and the more children a woman has, the less often she is employed. – To support women, it is worth encouraging men to be more involved in family responsibilities, which will later translate into equality in employment – explains Nadia Kurtieva from the Lewiatan Confederation. This will also translate into pension equality. Dad on parental leave means a chance for a bigger pension for mom.
Currently, the average pension for women is significantly lower than the average pension for men. However, the vast majority of people on minimum pensions in Poland are women.
– Changing the family functioning model may result in equal rights not only in raising children, but also in obtaining retirement benefits – points out Mariusz Jedynak. This is consistent not only with expert data, but also with family calculations.
– Men have 50 percent of the responsibility for bringing this child into the world, it's nice if they could also try to take at least 50 percent of the responsibility for the first year – says Andrzej Kubisiak.
Main photo source: TVN24