In 2023, traditional gender roles will still be strongly present within a family: the first place of fathers will still remain in the workplace, that of women with the children. This has emerged from a study by the TOR research group of the Sociology department of the VUB, commissioned by the women’s movement ZIJkant, in response to Equal Pay Day, which falls on March 20 this year.
Equal Pay Day marks the day until when women must work to earn as much as men earned the previous year. According to the most recent figures from the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men (IGVM) from 2020, the pay gap in average gross annual wages is 22 percent. That means that women have to work 79 days longer to earn what men earned in 2022, so until March 20.
Since the calculations are based on the average annual wages of men and women, the effect of part-time work is much clearer, explains ZIJkant.
The good news is that some progress has been made compared to a year ago. The pay gap has been closed by 1.1 percentage points compared to the figures in 2019. This progress can be largely explained by the corona crisis in the 2020 data year. waiting at least 44 years for equal pay between women and men,” says the women’s movement.
Traditional gender roles
Traditional gender roles are still strongly present in the families themselves, according to research into the consequences of paternity and parental leave on the perception and division of paid and unpaid work within the family. The survey focuses on all men who have become fathers in the past five years and consists of a questionnaire and an interview. A total of 88 fathers completed the questionnaire. Nine fathers were then interviewed by the researchers.
The men see taking paternity leave as a matter of course, but they feel the boss’s hot breath and the moral duty on their necks. They see twenty days as the upper limit, after all, the work will not be done. Men therefore believe that the arrival of a child negatively affects their career or wages. However, they do not think this applies to their partner.
Paternity leave also does not ensure a more equal distribution of care responsibilities: for most fathers, their paternity leave is mainly used to support their partners. Subsequently also taking parental leave appears to be less obvious. It is still often seen as ‘free time’, to ‘sit at home’. Fathers say they receive insufficient support from their employers and fear a negative impact on their careers. Moreover, the loss of wages remains a major obstacle.
Mandatory paternity leave
The TOR study also shows that almost all fathers surveyed are in favor of making paternity leave mandatory. Almost all respondents also agree that equalizing the length of paternity leave and maternity leave would provide more equal opportunities.
Paternity leave was increased to twenty days at the beginning of this year, but ZIJkant advocates gradually extending it to the fifteen weeks a mother receives. “As a result, women and men are not only on an equal footing at home, but also at work. Twenty days is clearly too short to achieve a change in mentality,” it sounds.
ZIJkant also advocates a shorter working week. A thirty-hour week would give both women and men the opportunity to build a career, take care of children and have time for each other, is the reasoning. “Ultimately, according to the TOR study, men also clearly desire more time with the family,” said the women’s movement.
ZIJkant launches its annual campaign on the occasion of Equal Pay Day. That will be the slogan this year ‘it’s handy to have a dick’. “When closing deals and negotiations, in office spaces, during international conferences or after working hours in a café: it seems as if just having a penis opens doors”, it sounds. The message of the campaign is therefore: ‘don’t be a dick and close the wage gap’.
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