Guest blog by Anna Tarrant, Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln, where she is also the Director of the Centre for Innovation in Fatherhood and Family Research.

In the run up to the general election in 2024, attention to the need for policy reform to address stubborn gendered inequalities between men and women in relation to work and care have been a core focus for the Centre for Progressive Policy (CPP) and other commentators. Much of this discussion has focused on both barriers, and potential solutions, to women’s participation in the labour market, and quite rightly. A toxic combination of the gender gap, continued squeezes on family budgets, austerity driven welfare conditionality and now the cost-of-living crisis, means that work-family policies and economic drivers in the UK, are sustaining and alarmingly increasing gendered inequalities between women and men as parents and workers.

Recent trends indicate that far from enabling both parents to share childcare more equally, it is women who remain predominantly responsible for childcare. Declines in the total fertility rate nationally, especially among young women aged 30-35 years old, suggest that current socio-economic conditions are forcing women to make difficult choices; hold off from having children until much later or even altogether. It is perhaps unsurprising that women tell us that they want more flexible work policies, and available, accessible and affordable childcare.

While these policies represent more progressive options for mothers to adapt their work-care arrangements and to increase their inclusion in the labour market, the main emphasis of these solutions are mothers, rather than fathers. In only addressing one side of this rather complex picture, such approaches may risk only serving to re-enforce gendered divisions of unpaid labour, with women taking on the triple burden (of work, care and domestic labour), entrenching primary/secondary caregiver models in a dual-earner economic landscape.

This begs the question; where do men as fathers fit within this complex and ever evolving picture? Current progressive policy debates focus on improving parental leave systems for men, an important mechanism for addressing the work-care arrangements of fathers, as well as mothers. The UK currently has one of the least generous parental leave systems globally and recent policy reforms that allow men to split their 2 weeks of leave, are expected to do little to address the wider socio-economic structures shaping parents’ decision making around work, care and fertility. This is despite the fact that political parties who opt to provide better leave and entitlements for working families could sway voter decision making in their favour (see Working Families).

The Fatherhood Institute has developed a petition calling for 6 weeks’ well-paid leave for fathers and partners; a worthy cause. Evidence from the CPP report on paternity leave, for example, demonstrates that in countries where fathers have access to more than six weeks of paid paternity leave, there are smaller gender pay and labour force participation gaps.

While enhancements to paternity and parental leave have a role to play, on their own, they may do little to address gender imbalances in childcare and could reinforce socio-economic and age-based inequalities between families. Our research finds that such reforms, for example, are less likely to impact on low-income families, or those who reside in deprived areas. Presently, fathers with zero-hour contracts or those who are self-employed, are not entitled to parental leave at all, unless at the discretion of employers. For young fathers (aged 25 and under) in such circumstances, the breadwinner/caregiver model is further emphasised because universal credit payments are also paid at a lower rate for the under 25s. This policy, set against low-pay for young people and high youth unemployment rates, disincentivises independence from parents and contributes to delays in fertility decision-making. The current family policy and welfare landscape therefore not only entrenches gender-based inequalities, but age and socio-economic disadvantage as well, contributing to problematic deficit views of low-income, marginalised and ‘young’ men as failing fathers.

Against this backdrop, the role of public and health services and the need to embed a wider commitment to father-inclusion becomes even more pressing. Our research with young fathers highlights the challenges many public services face in including fathers, as well as ‘what works’ in ensuring the inclusion of fathers across a range of public health and third sector services. We know that when professionals from multi-agency and specialist support services effectively engage fathers and work to build relationships of trust, that fathers feel acknowledged as parents and more confident in their relationships with their children and co-parents. However, the present and continued lack of cohesive policy framework around father-inclusion, both in relation to leave and to familial support, means that opportunities for fathers to benefit from one-to-one and/or peer support, remains somewhat of a postcode lottery.

In overlooking fathers, an important opportunity to address men’s health and well-being is also being missed. Father-inclusive services and support enable more holistic support approaches around a much wider set of socio-economic and personal issues experienced by men. This includes accessing welfare support, mental health, engagements with the courts, and labour force participation. There is therefore a political incentive for considering father-inclusion among those whose attention is becoming increasingly attuned the health and well-being of men. There is perhaps a role for a Men’s Health Strategy, for example, to foreground fatherhood (and circumvent problematic ‘crisis of masculinity’ discourses), albeit as an inclusive and equitable agenda that addresses men’s health both for their benefit and that of women and children too.

Finally, our work provides compelling evidence that social policy interventions that are designed on the premise of father-inclusion, as well as cultures of compassion, that ensure that people are treated with respect, dignity and compassion, have potential to support fathers and their families across a broad range of policy and practice areas. These include but are not limited to early years provision and childcare, the housing and youth sectors, social work practice, child welfare, migration and more. On the basis of these findings, we argue that public service reform that is underpinned by an ethos of compassion and a commitment to father-inclusion, has transformative potential. Yet this remains an area of progressive policy and practice that is poorly invested in and still doesn’t get enough attention, including from the main political parties.

Father-inclusion best practice: the Grimsby Dads Collective case study

The Grimsby Dads Collective is a community-driven support intervention founded in Grimsby, a coastal town in North East Lincolnshire, UK. Since rebranded as Dads United, the intervention was co-created with and for young fathers, guided by Professor Anna Tarrant and local and national partners including Coram Family and Child Care, NSPCC Together for Childhood and YMCA Humber. Our shared aim for the intervention has been to co-create and embed local father-inclusive support pathways and environments.

The process of co-creating a new support offer for dads has created a space for young fathers to benefit from and provide peer support to one another and to train as ‘experts by experience’ to promote the broader benefits of father-inclusive practice for the whole family. The dads are supported to develop their narratives about their experiences and support needs as fathers and to advocate on behalf of themselves and others to audiences of multi-agency professionals through the co-delivery of bespoke training, addressing national gaps in father-inclusive training.

Core to the theory of change is the transformation of the existing support and policy ecosystem, on a platform of knowledge exchange that is rooted in lived experience and the existing evidence base. Promoted by the creation of the intervention, fathers has become more visible as resources to their children. A commitment to father-inclusion has also begun to be embedded at strategical and operational level in Grimsby, encouraging a shift in the number and accessibility of advice, activities, and services for dads of all ages.

Conclusions and recommendations

In sum, cultural and generational shifts towards father inclusion among parents reflect a groundswell of public commitment to the value of involved fatherhood and its benefits for men, women, and children. Developing a progressive policy and welfare landscape that is attentive to evolving family diversity and dynamics, including the roles and responsibilities of fathers as workers and carers, is essential to familial and societal well-being. As a gender equality agenda, father-inclusion advocates a shift in attitudes and perceptions around fathers as carers, recognising the diversity of fatherhood experiences and the importance of fathers’ participation, not only in their family lives, but also across other key life course domains including employment.

As the UK’s political parties gear up to develop their manifestos for the forthcoming General Election, they should therefore consider:

• Greater protections and access to paternity leave for all fathers, especially those who are self-employed and/or on zero-hour contracts. Universal access to paternity leave at the birth of a child will ensure that all fathers, regardless of employment circumstances, have the opportunity to be there for their children and to co-parent from the outset.

• A wider scope for public policy that emphasises the importance of father involvement in giving their children the best start in life. Beyond enhancements to paternity leave, wider welfare and family policy approaches should consider the implications for men’s roles and responsibilities as fathers, as well as workers. Organisations and industry, for example, have a key role to play in recognising and supporting their employees as fathers.

• A more coherent national policy framework/strategy is needed for all fathers that acknowledges both the value of their participation in work and care and embeds father-inclusion. Such a framework would support more strategic national investment in training, education, and public service reform to the benefit of professional delivery and for the support of all men in relation to their wider citizenship.

• Requiring strategic attention and commitment to a culture of father-inclusion among all services that engage with parents and families, including but not limited to: maternity services and health visiting, nursing, education, child protection, perinatal mental health services and the Family Hubs, youth and community support groups, housing support and criminal justice.

• A shift away from blaming fathers and seeing them as failing, absent or ‘in crisis’, to a review of how current welfare and family policy systems intersect and operate to fail fathers (and women and children by implication). Attention ought to be paid to how public and third sector service offers and relationships might be invested in more strategically so that they can better support fathers to be there for their children.

• Addressing the funding of public services and investments in the early years to reduce the current postcode lottery of support for fathers. The incoming political party would reap the longer-term rewards of more strategic investment in father-inclusion in childcare and the early years, with particular benefit to those in deprived areas.

Taken together, these policies could embed father-inclusion as a core mechanism in the building of cultures of compassion across diverse social policy arenas, especially where they intervene in the lives of families.