Why Don’t Fathers Take Much Shared Parental Leave in the UK?
By Laura Fumagalli (ISER, University of Essex), Greta Morando (University of Sheffield) and Sonkurt Sen (University of Bonn)
A decade after the introduction of Shared Parental Leave, which allows parents to divide up to 50 weeks of leave and associated statutory pay between them, uptake by fathers remains low. With only around 2–5% of eligible fathers using Shared Parental Leave, caring for a newborn remains primarily a mother’s responsibility. As a result, Shared Parental Leave has largely failed to rebalance caregiving and labour market work within families.
A common explanation for the low uptake of Shared Parental Leave among fathers points to money. Fathers typically earn more than mothers and often have access to less generous employer top-ups to statutory parental leave pay, which is among the least generous in the OECD. These concerns have shaped much of the current debate on paternity and parental leave, which focuses on reducing the financial costs of fathers taking leave. However, monetary considerations may not fully explain the low take-up. Households may not perceive fathers’ caregiving as particularly valuable for the family. If this is the case, increasing compensation alone may not be sufficient to meaningfully increase uptake.
We study how people perceive the non-monetary benefits of transferring some weeks of parental leave from the mother to the father; whether these perceptions help explain how leave is allocated between parents; and whether an information campaign highlighting the benefits of fathers’ involvement in newborn care can change beliefs and increase interest in Shared Parental Leave.
We survey a nationally representative sample of around 1,400 adults of childbearing age living in England, Wales, and Scotland. Respondents are shown several scenarios in which a hypothetical couple shares a total of 40 weeks of parental leave in different ways between the mother and the father. For each scenario, they are asked how they think a particular division of leave would affect future outcomes, such as the mother’s return to work and mental health, the father’s relationship with the child and involvement in the child’s education, and the child’s nutrition and later academic success. Crucially, these scenarios are designed so that household income is held constant, allowing us to isolate the perceived non-monetary returns to fathers taking leave.
Do People Value Fathers as Caregivers for Newborns?
On average, people believe that fathers’ leave has positive effects on the family. Moving from an allocation in which the mother takes 40 weeks of Shared Parental Leave and the father takes none to one in which the mother takes 26 weeks and the father takes 14 is perceived to increase the father’s future emotional bond with the child and involvement in education by 82% and 60% of a standard deviation, respectively. Fathers’ leave is also perceived to benefit mothers. Moving from 0 of the total 40 weeks of leave allocated to the father to 14 weeks allocated to him increases the perceived probability that the mother is at work two years after giving birth by 48% of a standard deviation and reduces the perceived risk of maternal postnatal depression by 31% of a standard deviation. Perceived effects on children are more limited. Allocating 14, rather than 0, weeks of leave to fathers increases the perceived probability that the child achieves a satisfactory academic performance by 18% of a standard deviation but has no effect on the perceived likelihood that the child consumes the recommended number of calories in the first year of life, possibly reflecting concerns that fathers’ involvement may interfere with breastfeeding. These average results mask substantial heterogeneity. A non-negligible share of respondents, both men and women, believe that transferring even a small amount of leave from the mother to the father may have negative effects, particularly on children’s nutrition.
We also find that beliefs—together with other monetary and non-monetary factors such as relative income loss from taking leave, having peers who have used Shared Parental Leave, and access to informal childcare from family members—predict people’s preferred allocation of parental leave. These patterns are driven primarily by women. Men’s stated preferences, by contrast, are not well explained by the usual drivers of leave decisions or by measures of gender role attitudes. When stating their preferred leave allocation, male respondents appear to consider only perceived returns related to child outcomes, while benefits for mothers or for the father–child bond do not seem to factor into their decisions.
Can Information Change Minds and Behaviour?
To test whether beliefs can be shifted, we conduct a randomised information experiment. Half of the sample is shown a short, evidence-based summary of academic research on the effects of fathers taking leave, emphasizing positive effects on maternal mental health, the division of household work, and children’s academic outcomes, as well as limited or null negative effects on fathers’ earnings.
Respondents who receive the information report higher returns to transferring some weeks of leave from the mother to the father, particularly regarding benefits for mothers’ mental health and children’s academic performance—outcomes explicitly mentioned in the summary provided. However, the effects on support for Shared Parental Leave and preferred leave allocations are modest. We find no effect on the likelihood of donating to a charity supporting Shared Parental Leave, suggestive increases in willingness to sign a petition advocating better parental leave pay, and a small increase in the share of leave ideally allocated to fathers, but only among female respondents.
What Does This Mean for Policy?
The study offers several lessons for policymakers:
- Low uptake of Shared Parental Leave is not simply due to a lack of trust in fathers as caregivers.On average, people already recognise that fathers’ leave has positive effects, although a non-negligible minority remains sceptical about transferring even limited leave from mothers to fathers.
- Changing beliefs is not sufficient on its own. Other constraints—particularly financial ones—remain central, strengthening the case for higher wage replacement for fathers.
- Standard explanations for leave decisions fit mothers better than fathers. Fathers may be influenced by different factors or may be less involved in leave decisions altogether. This may be reinforced by the framing of SPL as an entitlement that belongs to mothers and must be transferred to fathers. Policies that earmark leave for fathers, combined with a shift in how fathers’ leave is discussed and understood, may help increase take-up.
As the UK continues to consider reforms to family-friendly policies, this research highlights a key lesson: enabling fathers to take leave requires more than persuasion—it requires systemic support and thoughtful policy design.