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Finito World
James Yeates, an NHS worker in Suffolk, welcomed his son into the world in September 2024. It was, as he said, “the happiest moment of my life.” And yet two weeks later, like so many fathers in Britain, he returned to work with the peculiar ache of someone who has just left something irreplaceable behind. The time allotted for his transformation — from man to father, from self to service — had expired. Bureaucracy had spoken.
The UK’s statutory paternity leave system, introduced in 2003, remains almost unchanged — and, according to a damning new report from Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, now ranks among the worst in the developed world. That it took this long to say it officially tells us much. That we have waited two decades without reform tells us even more.
The numbers are blunt. Just two weeks’ leave. £187.18 a week, or 90% of earnings — whichever is lower. That’s less than half the National Living Wage. For the self-employed or those earning under £123 a week: no leave at all.
Compare this to Spain: 16 weeks of paid paternity leave. Or France: 28 days. Or Sweden: 480 days of shared leave, with 90 reserved for fathers. We are, in the words of George Gabriel, co-founder of The Dad Shift, “leaving fathers crumbs.” And crumbs, in the delicate early days of parenthood, are not enough.
A Nation Still Built on Outdated Assumptions
The report is clear: the current system “entrenches outdated gender stereotypes.” It is not just inadequate; it is actively regressive. The architecture of UK parental leave is still built on an Edwardian assumption — that parenting is women’s work, and that a father’s primary function is to return to the workforce as quickly as possible. In a century that purports to celebrate equality, this is more than a contradiction. It is an institutional insult.
The evidence of harm is everywhere. Fathers describe emotional dislocation. Mothers feel abandoned. Children — though too young to articulate it — absorb a pattern that begins on day one: mother present, father absent. It is a cycle that reproduces itself through decades.
And yet the fix is known. Pay fathers properly. Extend leave. Make it default, not optional. In short: treat fatherhood with the seriousness we claim to give motherhood.
The Cost of Change — and the Cost of Delay
The Committee’s recommendations are not radical by international standards. They propose extending paternity leave to six weeks, increasing pay to 90% of earnings, and simplifying shared parental leave. And crucially, they say it should happen in this Parliament — not the next one, not “when funds allow”, but now.
But change is not without cost. A full reform of the system would require billions — a steep ask in a post-pandemic economy weighed down by record debt, aging infrastructure, and restless demands across every department. In 2023–24, the UK spent £3.3 billion on statutory maternity pay. The figure for paternity pay? Just £69 million. Shared parental leave? A paltry £34.4 million. These numbers reveal priorities. Or, rather, they reveal where priorities have not been.
The government says a full review is underway, due before mid-July. But as Kathy Jones of the Fatherhood Institute puts it: “Families shouldn’t have to wait.” That they do is perhaps a reflection of a deeper truth: that when men suffer in silence, systems seldom notice.
The Quiet Crisis of Modern Fatherhood
What is a father now?
It is a question that the culture asks often, but answers vaguely. The active father, the emotionally available father, the stay-at-home father — all are welcomed in theory, yet unsupported in law. The father who wants to be present finds himself punished economically for it. The working-class father must choose: income or intimacy. The self-employed father is simply excluded.
And so, the narrative persists: fathers don’t want leave, fathers don’t ask, fathers don’t care. But the data suggests otherwise. A 2023 government review found nearly half of fathers weren’t even aware shared parental leave existed. Uptake is under 2%. Invisibility, it turns out, is sometimes designed.
And yet, beneath the numbers, a movement stirs. Hundreds of fathers are expected to strike this week — in what is being described as the first “dad strike” — outside the Department for Business and Trade. It is a moment rich with symbolism. Not angry. Not militant. Just a quiet, visible refusal to remain erased.
Political Will and the Architecture of Care
To reform paternity leave is not just to fix a policy. It is to reimagine society. It is to say that love is not gendered, that parenting is not partitioned, that a child deserves both its parents — not just in presence, but in full legal support.
And yet the barriers remain. In a Spending Review cycle already straining under commitments to defence, energy, housing, and public sector pay, the Treasury will balk. Ministers will ask: is this affordable? But perhaps the better question is: is delay still morally defensible?
This is not about token gestures. It is about structure. To properly reform parental leave is to build a new foundation for modern families — one where fatherhood is not a luxury, but a right.
The next few weeks will determine if that vision is seen, or shelved. But the demand has been made. The data is clear. And outside the halls of Whitehall, new fathers — like James Yeates — are already waiting. For time. For dignity. For a system that finally includes them.
