Middle-Class Dads Get More Time With Children

“Quality time” for fathers to spend with their young children has become a middle-class perk, as access to flexible work is limited largely to professional men, a new report has indicated.

It said that a new class divide had emerged between well-off families, where fathers take full paternity leave and regular time off to see their families, and manual workers, who are locked into a traditional working week.

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) found that more than 80 per cent of fathers with young children who have professional or managerial jobs have full access to flexible working arrangements compared with 46 per cent of fathers in semi-skilled or manual work.

More than three quarters of better-off fathers took two weeks of paternity leave when their babies were born, compared with two thirds of fathers on lower incomes, it said.

The report, which used data from the continuing Millennium Cohort Study, suggests that the concept of fathers spending quality time with their children risks becoming the preserve of the middle class.

One of the key findings of the study, which follows a group of 19,000 children born in 2000, is that developmental problems at the age of 3 were more common when fathers took no time off work at the birth, then continued to work full time during their child’s early years.

The report, The State of the Modern Family, also found that mothers from higher-income groups have been the main beneficiaries of extra maternity leave, flexible work and investment in childcare facilities.

Jenny Watson, chairman of the EOC, said that the Government should ensure that the children of poorer families did not miss out on flexible work: “Families on low incomes still struggle to afford formal childcare such as nurseries and child-minders, even though the research shows that it benefits children. Dads in poorer families are less able to afford two weeks’ paternity leave when their baby is born, despite wanting to be involved,” she said.

The family is shaping up to be a key issue in the next general election.