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Tom, 37, is one of those unreconstructed fathers whose world-view flies in the face of today's report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which suggests the majority of working fathers are unhappy with their work-life balance. The Fathers, Family and Work report found that that 62% of fathers thought that dads should spend more time caring for their children.
But maybe working fathers – and their employers – would benefit from reducing their hours. The EHRC report found that six out of 10 fathers work more than 40 hours a week. Yet a recent survey of American human resources directors by researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah, found that where city [ie local authority] employees had been offered flexitime or part-time contracts, 64% said the new working patterns improved morale, and 41% said they improved productivity.
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- But do fathers really want to reduce their working hours to spend more time with their kids? "Yes, they do," says Duncan Fisher, the founder of Fathers Direct, who gave up a job in international development to raise his two daughters and runs the dad.info website. "It's a very slow process because there are lots of things blocking them – workplace cultures and pay – but the impulse is definitely there."
- Fisher argues that the process will only be accelerated when there is a mechanism that incentivises working fathers to spend more time doing childcare. That mechanism seemed, at least, to be offered last month when Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman announced a reform whereby mothers would be able to choose to transfer the last six months of their maternity leave to the father, three months of which would be paid. "
- Historically, employers' groups have worried about the cost to taxpayers of any extension to parental leave. When, for instance, the EHRC called on the government to introduce a 10-year-plan to encourage greater parity between maternity and paternity leave earlier this year, it was greeted with wails from employers' groups. The EHRC proposal included an additional four months of parental leave – after the mother's initial six months leave – which either parent could take, with at least eight weeks at 90% pay. The CBI's director of Human Resources policy, Katja Hall, said at the time: "Given the alarming state of the public finances, these plans, which would cost taxpayers an extra £5.3bn, are unaffordable." She said it would be better to encourage flexible working which would not increase costs to employers or taxpayers.
- Some fathers aren't waiting for a reform to parental leave to make their dream of doing more childcare a reality. Two years ago Rob, 44, went part time as a newspaper sub-editor. Now he spends Mondays and Tuesdays with the children while his partner Jo, who works in adult education, looks after them on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. But this arrangement is unusual: the Office for National Statistics report, Focus on Gender, found that at the start of 2008, 38% of women with dependent children worked part-time, compared with only 4% of men with dependent children

12 Oct 09

UK quality of life poor, study says | UK news | The Guardian

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11 Oct 09

Tim Hayward's food fetish: urban bee keeping | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

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