Government to use boosted paid parental leave to entice fathers to do more caring

The current system, in place for a decade and costing about $2.6 billion a year, offers 18 weeks of leave to the primary carer and another two weeks in “dad and partner pay” for the secondary carer regardless of whether they are men or women.

Grattan Institute chief Danielle Wood, a member of the taskforce, called for the expansion of the scheme to 26 weeks last year on the grounds the $600 million additional cost would lead to stronger economic growth from greater participation in the workforce by women.

“I’m satisfied the government understands the importance of the allocation for each parent for driving cultural change in gender divisions of work and care,” she said.

“I will be pushing for at least six weeks ‘use it or lose it’ for each parent.”

This approach would only offer 20 weeks in total if the father chose not to take the leave, giving families an incentive for the man to care for the young child so the mother might stay connected to her job and career.

The executive director of The Parenthood, Georgie Dent, said the goal of four or six weeks of “use it or lose it” parental leave was essential to achieving a change in behaviour so men did more of the parenting in the early months and kept up this pattern for years.

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“All the recent studies show that children do much better when they have positive engagement with dads,” said Dent.

With only 25 per cent of eligible men taking the leave in the existing scheme, the taskforce may have to look at other incentives such as an increase in the payment rate, currently set at the minimum wage of about $812 per week.

University of Sydney professor Marian Baird said government data showed that 95 per cent of the primary carer leave was taken by mothers and 95 per cent of secondary carer leave was taken by fathers, with no shift in behaviour over the past decade.

“If we want men to use the scheme more, the problem is that being paid at the national minimum wage will continue to be a barrier,” she said.

A key barrier is that men typically earn more than women and family incomes would fall if the man took more parental leave even if it was funded by the taxpayer.

“We could say eight weeks has to be reserved for the father but the possibility is that the men won’t use that because it’s paid at the minimum wage, so we end up not extending the period for either parents,” Baird said.

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