The tricky case of the returning parent.
Are mums and dads treated differently when they return to work after parental leave? We designed a simple experiment to find out…
Alex and Calum: a selection of photos from our partnership with Arcadis on Flexible Working.
Organisations are calling for gender equality in the home as well as in the workplace. Over 90% of men believe that it is equally acceptable for men and women to take time away from work to take care of their families. Yet, men are still much less likely to do so, even when companies offer them extended parental leave. Why?
Traditional gender roles equating women with caregiving and men with paid work are deeply entrenched in our society. Despite the above statistic, men report being discouraged from taking parental leave by their employers, being ridiculed by their colleagues if they decide to take extended parental leave, and being given “grunt work for daring to challenge norms”. It appears that while people may believe that men and women should share their caring responsibilities, their behaviour does not always reflect these beliefs…
Our Experiment
We wanted to explore that idea through the lens of a simple people decision. We presented 334 managers with a management decision task. We asked them to imagine that they were working on an important project, and had to delegate repetitive administrative work to one of two candidates, neither of whom wanted to do this work. Would they choose the talented graduate looking for more challenging tasks, or the returning parent looking for more responsibility at work? Here’s what they said:
Who gets the admin? (%)
Participants were significantly more likely to allocate work to the graduate. But what we really wanted to understand was the impact of gender on allocation choices. To do this, we changed the name of the candidates. When participants were presented with their candidates, they were randomly allocated into two groups. Those in the first group were told that the parent’s name was Andrew and those in the second group were told it was Kate:
We found that significantly more managers were willing to give the administrative work to the returning dad. This finding supports what men are saying about being given the grunt work after returning from parental leave. Nevertheless, we were taken aback. Substantial research has demonstrated that women experience a parental penalty. In addition to salary penalties, women are perceived as less committed when they become mothers. Fathers, on the other hand, do not suffer financially, and can in fact benefit from being a parent.
To understand this paradox, we looked at the reasons our managers had given for allocating work to the parent rather than the graduate. Some stated it was because they wanted someone reliable to carry out the admin, while others said that this type of easy, repetitive work would help ease them back into employment after a stressful time at home. These answers were distinctly gendered:
Why did some managers give the work to the parents?
What does this mean? When participants chose to allocate work to the Andrew the dad, they were more likely to argue that this would allow him to ease back into work before moving onto more complicated projects:
“If Andrew has just returned back it would be better for him to do the task as it may help to ease him back into his work before he moves onto more complex things”
“Andrew will be sleep deprived for a long time, so doing repetitive work might be a blessing in disguise”
“After parental leave, a basic task to ease him back in to working would be beneficial”
In contrast, when participants chose to allocate work to Kate the mum, they were more likely to argue that they needed a reliable and loyal member of the team to take on the work:
“Kate is a more experienced member of the team, so her focus will be better and therefore the job will be done more quickly and efficiently”
“Kate is reliable and consistent so I trust that Kate would do the work quickly and well”
“Kate is more of an established employee and would hopefully be more dedicated to the task”
These differences are important. Our findings show that men are treated unfairly when they return to work after parental leave, but also suggest that this treatment is temporary. This supports existing evidence, which finds that men do not experience long-term parental penalties. Our findings also show that women may be less likely to suffer an immediate penalty for going on parental leave (perhaps because they are not defying gender norms by doing so). However, when women are given repetitive administrative work, this allocation is not to give them a temporary break from more complex tasks. Instead, it is explained by their work ethic and reliability. This might go some way towards explaining why women find it difficult to move up the career ladder: For men, the administrative work is temporary. For women it may be an expectation that follows them for the rest of their career.
What should we do about it?
This experiment was light, illustrative and diagnostic, so lots of questions remain. The first thing you might wonder is whether this result would hold in your organisation. The second is whether we can do anything to change it…
We have lots of ideas.
What if Managers were told about this bias just before their returning parent came back to work? What if the working mums and dads were told too? Would everyone be more vigilant about their work allocation decisions?
What if Managers were nudged to have a direct conversation about ambition and flexibility with their returning parent (i.e. “I know that just because you need more flexibility, it doesn’t mean you are any less ambitious”)? Would this encourage an open career conversation?
What if Managers and their returning parent received a selection of stories of senior, successful working parents on their first day, and were simply left to their own devices? Would the bias be mitigated?
Would these work? We won’t know until we test them. Our experiment is just another reminder that there is a problem we need to solve. So by all means, make your parental leave policy more generous. But don’t just do that. Remember that this is a behavioural problem that needs us to think deeper, work harder and most importantly, to test, learn and adapt.