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King's Global Institute for Women’s Leadership

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Fathers and flexible work

Read the research

In a peer-reviewed article in the journal Work, Employment and Society, researchers including GIWL Senior Research Fellow Dr Rose Cook found that:

  • 10% of mothers and 30% of fathers in the UK did not know that they could by rights request flexible working arrangements.
  • In the case of part-time work alone, 58% of fathers did not know that they might be eligible, compared with 22% of mothers.
  • 81% of fathers did not know they were eligible for a job-share, compared with 70% of mothers.

The study analysed responses by 3,072 mothers and 2,862 fathers in 2015 to a survey asking if they knew that flexible working arrangements were offered at their place of work.The data was then adjusted to study the effects of occupations, education and union presence on awareness.

They found that fathers in lower supervisory and technical occupations were more than twice as likely to be unaware that working reduced hours was unavailable, compared to professional or managerial fathers. Those who worked in organisations without a union presence were almost twice as likely not to know as those who do.