14th June 2016
Ahead of Fathers’ Day (19 June), the Fatherhood Institute has released a new study called the Fairness In Families Index (FIFI) which compares countries on a variety of factors to determine gender equality. Overall the UK has dropped three places since 2010, coming 12th out of 22.
British men spend 24 minutes caring for children, for every hour done by women. This makes UK parents officially the worst in the developed world at sharing their childcare responsibilities, according to the Fatherhood Institute’s Fairness In Families Index (FIFI),
Links to research and blog
There’s been a reaction on Twitter to this research and the Fatherhood Institute has responded in a Blog.
Key policy changes to hasten gender equality
The Fatherhood Institute identified factors that were holding fathers back from greater involvement, and presented three key policy changes the UK government could make to hasten progress towards gender equality:
- Redesign parenting leave, moving towards a Scandinavian-style system including a substantial period of well-paid, ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ leave for fathers
- Strengthen efforts to reduce the gender pay gap
- Require early years, schools, social work and maternity services to publish data on their engagement with fathers; and be inspected on this by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission.
