SOCIETY DOES not stand still. It changes and adapts to changing tides of economic and social development. Nowhere is this clearer than among families in Ireland today. New research shows that women are increasingly better educated than their male partners and more likely to be higher earners. One in three families is now made up of lone parents, cohabiting couples or other non-traditional family units.
Married couples, as a proportion of overall family units, are on the decline. In Ireland, we have never been particularly good at ensuring our public policies keep pace with social change. Family law, for example, is still predicated on marriage of opposite sex couples. Cohabiting couples continue to be treated far less favourably than spouses in areas ranging from taxation to tenancy rights. Unmarried fathers still don’t have legal rights in relation to their children, even if their name is on their child’s birth certificate.
There have been improvements, such as the the Civil Partnership Act for same-sex couples and an automatic redress scheme for cohabiting couples. But our laws and policies still lag well behind the onward march of social change. The findings of an ESRI study on family units in conjunction with UCD published this week should be a wake-up call for our legislators. Its finding that women in younger couples may be in a better place to become the breadwinner for a family is striking. Despite this, our parental leave laws continue to be based on a view of life where mothers stay at home and fathers are the principal earners.
There is no right to paid paternity leave for fathers in Ireland. Mothers are expected to take on the vast bulk of childcare themselves. The result is that women often feel compelled to downsize their ambitions. Children can suffer, too, often missing out on time with their fathers, even though research shows the input of dads helps children develop better friendships, have higher self-esteem and do better at school. Our laws do not suit many men either. Increasingly, fathers want to play a hands-on role with their young children. But too many feel they cannot.
It is time to change our system, which discourages fathers from taking a central role in raising their children. Our politicians should look to the UK, which is responding to this social change, as well as to Scandinavian countries which have offered shared parental leave for years. Employers, too, should think about how they can help ensure the workplace accommodates working parents to share family responsibilities.
At a time of recession, much of our emphasis is on job security rather than flexible working. But this should not be an excuse to avoid addressing these issues. In fact, research shows that economic benefits flow from more flexible working arrangements. Equalising rights to leave will not revolutionise society overnight. But it will go some way towards tackling inequality. Only by supporting parents will we be able to give them real choices. Society is changing. Policymakers must do far more to catch up.