England's Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg expects men will stay home when his new law makes 50 weeks of paternity leave available, but will this change be refreshing or end up stale and unused?
A recent survey by the department of Business Innovation and Skills indicated 53 percent of people think child-rearing should be a shared, but how childcare is shared is viewed differently by men and women.
When asked who is mainly responsible for childcare, moms and dads agreed that the women carried most of the responsibility on a daily basis, however:
- One-third of men surveyed think they are the main caregivers. They believe they are primary 29 percent of the time while sharing responsibility with the mother 39 percent of the time. That leaves moms only shouldering 32 percent of the duty on their own.
- Women believe men only fly solo as child caregiver a mere 5 percent of the time. Women surveyed believe that tasks are shared 19 percent of the time, but that the woman of the house bears the brunt with 75 percent of childcare being their responsibility.
Clegg's Shared Parental Leave bill will allow expecting parents or parents matched for adoption to decide if they want to split the 52 weeks of maternity leave allowed, according to U.K.'s Mirror. On or after April 5, moms and dads can share the time off (50 weeks) instead of leaving mom at home for a year. The first two weeks are always for the mother.
The amount of stay-at-home dads has doubled since 1993, according to Mirror, but the new bill isn't pushing for dads to stay home - the bill is designed to have parents share childcare so neither parent loses their career.
