(Finance) – A father who is over 30 years old, lives in the North, works in medium-large sized companies with a stable employment contract and has a medium-high income. Second Save the Children who released research on INPS data on the occasion of March 19th, Father’s Day, this is it the profile of the father who uses paternity leavewithout forgetting to add that the most important fact is that, in Italy the rate of use of paternity leave more than tripled between 2013 and 2022.
According to the report, in fact, in 2013, in fact, just under 1 father in 5 took advantage of it (19.25%), that is, 51,745 fathers, while, in 2022, there were more than 3 out of 5 (64.02%), that is, 172,797 fathers, with few differences depending on whether they were parents of the first (65.88%), second or subsequent son (62.08%).
When paternity leave was introduced in 2012, it provided for only one compulsory day and two optional ones, while today 10 mandatory days and one optional are guaranteed to new fathers and can be used between two months before and 5 months after giving birth. Encourage new fathers to share the care of their children, and at the same time, eliminate the many obstacles that still block mothers’ entry and professional development into the world of work.
Paternity leave plays a fundamental role in the redistribution of family burdens and in promoting a different conception of the father figure. Even if, to date, women still give up their careers or even their jobs because the burden of care is often an obstacle to their professional life, more and more fathers are taking advantage of paternity leave.
However, they exist still strong differences in the use of paternity leave. The investigation shows that the number of fathers who benefit from it is higher in the Northern provinces and lower in those of the South and among those with a higher income.
Furthermore, fathers who use paternity leave more appear to be men in the age groups between 30 and 39 (65.4%) and between 40 and 49 (65.6%). The father is more likely to take paternity leave if he works in medium-large companies. In fact, among those with over 100 employees, use is equal to 77%, while it drops to 67.8% in those with between 51 and 100 employees, and to 60% among those with between 16 and 50 employees. It reaches 45.2% in companies with 15 employees or less. Yet, it is precisely in this last type of company that the greatest increase in the use of paternity leave was recorded between 2021 and 2022 (+8.7%).
In addition to differences by age and company size, there are also other differences in the use of paternity leave, which concern the type of contract, income and area of residence. Although the increase in the use of paternity leave is recorded throughout Italy, there are some territorial differences with usage values lower than 30%. These data are found in the provinces of Crotone (24%), Trapani (27%), Agrigento and Vibo Valentia (29% in both provinces), while values above 80% (the highest) are recorded in the provinces of Bergamo and Lecco (81% in both cases), Treviso (82%), Vicenza (83%) and Pordenone (85%).
In the use of paternity leave, there are strong inequalities between the different types of contracts, in favor of those with a more stable employment contract. In fact, if among workers with a permanent contract the percentage is close to 70% (69.49%), among those with a fixed-term contract it drops to 35.95%, while among seasonal workers it reaches only 19.72%. .
As regards the income brackets, however, lThe use of paternity leave is more widespread among fathers with an income between 15 thousand and 28 thousand euros (73.3%) and among those with an income greater than 28 thousand euros and less than 50 thousand (85.68%). The positive correlation between income and use of paternity leave, however, stops starting from incomes of 50 thousand euros (78.63% of those with an income above this amount take advantage of it).
Giorgia D’Errico, Director of Public Affairs and Institutional Relations at Save the Childrenregarding the current maternity and paternity leave, declared: “It is necessary to support this change, to move in the direction of paternity leave for all workers, not just employees, ensuring that employers fulfill their obligation to recognize this right, and up to the point of being equated with compulsory maternity leave. This is a measure also in support of new mothers, in a period of life that too often proves difficult and characterized by feelings of inadequacy and loneliness.”