Fathers will now be able to spend almost a month with their babies. From this Thursday 1er July, paternity leave increases to twenty-eight days against fourteen until then, including seven compulsory, after the birth of their child. This reform, long called for by many fathers, unions and feminist associations, and announced in September 2020 by Emmanuel Macron, aims to tackle gender inequalities in the workplace, both on the labor market and ‘in homes. A lever “In terms of equality between women and men”, do we rent at the Elysee.
For the sociologist Christine Castelain-Meunier, instigator of paternity leave in France in 2002, “We still too often think that everything relating to the child is the responsibility of the woman. There is a difficulty in recognizing that the father can be more than a patch in the middle of the birth, and be really involved ”.
How can we hope that fathers bring their children to the pediatrician more often if schools continue to contact the mother as a priority when the child is sick? Or learn to bathe an infant when midwives only address their explanations to women in the maternity ward? “The extension of paternity leave helps to break these traditional representations. This confirms the spread of this new norm of fatherhood involved “, Believes Christine Castelain-Meunier, who sees the advent of a generation of more committed fathers.
Rebalancing task sharing
Since its implementation, recourse to paternity leave of fourteen days has changed little. About seven out of ten eligible fathers use it, with strong social disparities due to the pressure sometimes exerted on those whose employment is precarious not to take this leave. And where many European countries such as Sweden, Finland or Spain have gradually adopted more generous provisions, its duration has remained, until now, unchanged in France. Doubling paternity leave could allow France, a pioneer on the subject, to make up part of its lag behind its neighbors.
Early childhood specialists first see this extension as an opportunity for fathers to establish a special relationship with the newborn. “It takes time, availability and physical and emotional closeness on the part of parents for them to build a harmonious relationship with their baby”, indicated so the report on the child’s first 1,000 days, submitted in September 2020 to the Secretary of State for Children and Families, Adrien Taquet. Links which play a fundamental role in the development of the child, but also for the continuation of the family organization.
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