What is it about?
The article examines the policy of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) in the UK from a gender equality perspective. It asks whether the policy is capable of challenging the assumption that mothers are the main carers for young children by enabling more men to take an extended period of leave early on in their child's life. In particular, it argues that SPL is open to legal challenge by fathers because it does not provide a 'stand alone' right to SPL for them.
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Why is it important?
By arguing that SPL as currently drafted is flawed, I hope to continue the debate around SPL in terms of its advantages as well as its disadvantages.
Perspectives
In my view SPL is a policy which has the potential to challenge tradtional assumptions about the division of care between parents. Hopefully policymakers and employers can be persuaded to improve it in order to achieve this goal.
Mr Jamie Atkinson
Manchester Metropolitan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Shared Parental Leave in the UK: can it advance gender equality by changing fathers into co-parents?, International Journal of Law in Context, May 2017, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1744552317000209.
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