The shared parental leave framework: Failing to fit working-class families?
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13582291231199371 |
| Author | Charlotte Bendall,Gemma Mitchell |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
Article
International Journal of
Discrimination and the Law
2023, Vol. 23(4) 299–320
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13582291231199371
journals.sagepub.com/home/jdi
The shared parental leave
framework: Failing to fit
working-class families?
Charlotte Bendall
1
and
Gemma Mitchell
2
Abstract
Shared Parental Leave has the potential to tackle a traditional gendered binary of roles
within the family, by encouraging more men to care. Such legal provisions can operate to
shape behaviour, both in terms of what they permit practically, but also from a normative
perspective, conveying ideas around the best way to perform ‘family.’However, placing
particular focus on the latter, we assert that Shared Parental Leave does not speak to
working-class parents. We initially consider whether the ‘heteronormative’family may, in
itself, be a middle-class problem, before highlighting the incompatibility of legislative
ambitions of ‘equal parenting’with working-class ways of living. ‘Equal parenting,’as
embodied within the legislation, imposes ideals that sit at odds with working-class
people’s attitudes, whilst assuming a two-parent family which is often incongruous
with working-class family forms. Ultimately, we favour a more holistic approach towards
breaking down ‘heteronormative’notions of women’s and men’s roles, to enable people
to make more meaningful choices about their lives that are not constrained by gender.
Keywords
Family, employment, care, parenting, class, heteronormativity
Introduction
Research suggests that since the Covid-19 pandemic, when working from home was en-
couraged, fathers have performed a greater amount of childcarethan ever (Burgess et al., 2022).
1
Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
2
UEA Law School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Corresponding author:
Charlotte Bendall, Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
Email: c.l.bendall@bham.ac.uk
As Burgess et al. (2022: 1) note, this is ‘significant for gender equality’in the UK. However,
working from home was only really accessible to those in occupations more commonly held by
the middle classes. This includes those in higher managerial, administrative or professional
occupations, as opposed to ‘routine and manual occupations’(Office for National Statistics,
undated). An awareness of social class is therefore vital to assessing our rate of progress
towards gender equality. In this paper, we consider how class impacts the level of uptake of
Shared Parental Leave (SPL). The legislative framework for SPL explicitly aimed to ‘enable
working fathers to take a more active role in caring for their children and working parents to
share [...] care,’making 50 weeks of maternity leave tr ansferable to eligible fathers and partners
(Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2012: 3). Despite widespread acknowl-
edgement that it has failed to achieve that aim, this area of the law is commonly accepted as
signifying progress towards equality (Women and Equalities Committee, 2018). Yet, we argue
that the legislation is ineffectual in breaking down traditional gender norms within working-
class families.
Whilst it has previously been recognised that family-friendly employment legislation
has had a predominantly middle-class focus (see Crompton, 2006), the issue has not been
interrogated in-depth in England and Wales. This may be because of a wider discomfort
towards, and inclination to ignore, class (Benn, 2020). Nevertheless, as Benn (2020: 42)
identifies, class still ‘plays a big part in how people understand each other,’shaping
attitudes and behaviour. Being mindful of it is especially vital when looking at parenting,
because ‘the class-specific constraints that low-income parents face have important
consequences for gender equality in the household division of labour’(Dunatchik, 2022:
16). Accordingly, we agree with Benn (2020: 31) that ‘without paying attention to class
[...] the law will continue to ignore a major form of discrimination.’
The key theoretical focus of the paper is ‘heteronormativity,’which we perceive as
manifesting in various practices that work to entrench dichotic gender roles. We con-
centrate on notions of the ‘nuclear family,’consisting of a caring mother, in accordance
with ideas of ‘femininity’, and a working father, aligning with conceptions of ‘mascu-
linity’. Although not its main focus, SPL sought to challenge these limiting gendered
expectations; the then-Government stated that it could enable fathers to become primary
carer, whilst allowing women to achieve their workplace potential (Department for
Business, Innovation and Skills, 2012). What that Government failed to acknowledge is
how social class can restrict this potential.
We begin by charting the evolution of the legislative framework, before situating SPL
in the wider context of the law around children and families, examining the messages
conveyed about the best way to perform ‘family.’Whilst family law arguably continues to
centre around a model of the ‘nuclear’family, underpinned by a belief of the presence of
two opposing genders, SPL has attempted to challenge this division of labour. We then
move on to highlight, though, how SPL is geared specifically towards the middle classes.
Practical constraints which disproportionately exclude working-class fathers will be
examined, before we analyse two reasons why SPL may not be speaking, on a normative
level, to working-class families. First, the ‘heteronormative’gender binary which SPL
aims to tackle may, in itself, appear to be a middle-class problem. Secondly, the ‘narrow’
legislative ambition of ‘equal parenting,’focusing alone on a two-parent caring model and
300 International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 23(4)
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