Why paternity leave works

If you’ve seen the movie Kramer vs Kramer, you’ll remember Dustin Hoffman in the role of a clueless dad who tries to take care of his little boy after his wife leaves him because he was too busy to spend any time with his family. It’s a heartwarming film, at once funny and sad, and in 1979, the year of its release, it telescoped a cultural shift that is continuing to play out even today. The shift is from the old stereotypes of gender roles — one where dads are in the office and moms are in the kitchen (and gays are in the closet). It’s a shift, too, from the social construct that women alone are responsible for baby care while fathers can get by with an occasional cluck at the tiny, defenceless human who gurgles in her bassinet.

This week foodtech firm Zomato did its bit to push that culture shift some more. In a hugely progressive gesture, it announced that it would grant 26 weeks’ paid parental leave to all its employees, and that includes non-birthing cases such as adoption, surrogacy and so on. In other words, Zomato has extended the 26-week maternity benefit mandated by Indian law to new fathers as well, thereby acknowledging that baby care ought to be shared between both parents and that fathers need to bond with their infants as much as mothers do.

Zomato’s move, which also includes a $1,000 endowment for the newborn, is a first by any Indian company, and firmly in the league of the enlightened HR policies of big tech firms in the West. Netflix grants 52 weeks’ paid parental leave to all its employees; Facebook, four months; Twitter, 20 weeks; Bloomberg, 26 weeks; Microsoft, 12 weeks… In the Nordic countries, too, generous paternity leave rules are a sine qua non for social harmony and work-life balance.

Why is paternity leave important? And why are so many workplaces and countries instituting it? Well, firstly, the very concept of paternity leave disrupts the social norm that women are the default caregivers of babies. Yes, it’s a gender-neutral policy and an opportunity for dads to spend time with the baby. But it’s also a big boost for equality at home. Legions of women all over the world drop out of the workforce, overwhelmed by the exhausting demands of a new baby. Enabling men to share the burden in those first few sleep-deprived weeks and months probably goes some way in getting them accustomed to a breathtaking idea — that contrary to what they’ve been led to believe, they need to be equal partners in child care. They need to be there not just at birthday parties or the occasional school event — they ought to be involved in the everyday, and often arduous, exercise of raising kids.

Hence, paternity leave is actually a resoundingly pro-women policy. It’s an instrument of social change, for when men share the responsibility of child care, women find it much easier to return to their jobs after a pregnancy.

Paternity leave. Photo: iStock

It’s pro-women in another way, too. The commonest argument against granting several weeks of paid maternity leave is that the policy would boomerang on women as companies would think twice before hiring them. The same argument was trotted out in some quarters when India’s Maternity Benefit Act was amended in 2017, raising mandatory maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks in organisations with 10 employees or more. Paid parental leave for all employees, irrespective of their gender, automatically removes this hiring bias against women.

The idea of paternity leave may sound a bit far-fetched in a country like India, where most workers are in the unorganised sector and do not even have access to maternity leave. Besides, patriarchal instincts run deep in every society. Even in the West, companies that provide paternity leave report that some of their employees are reluctant to take it — because they feel it’s not quite the “man” thing to do.

Still, calcified mindsets about gender roles are slowly breaking down. Last week JPMorgan Chase paid $5 million to settle a lawsuit which alleged that it had discriminated against male employees in its parental leave policy. Zomato’s big-hearted move could be a harbinger of a similar social change in India.
 

Shuma Raha is a journalist and author based in Delhi @ShumaRaha