Rowan - You were fab!

Aw thank you Zombie

We based our interviews yesterday on this survey from late 2014, in which 80% of respondents told us that they wished their husbands/spouses could have taken more paternity leave, and 70% of those told us that one of the major reasons they didn't was that the rates of pay were too low. 90% of respondents thought that statutory paternity leave rates should match maternity leave rates. So based on that, our approach yesterday was broadly to say that we think more money going into paternity leave pay has to be a good thing.

We've also done quite a lot of survey work with MNers on 'choreology' and the division of household tasks, and again and again you tell us that mothers still bear much more of the weight for household work than fathers do, even when both partners work out of the home. There's quite a lot of research showing that men who get involved in caring for their children very early on (usually involving a fair amount of paternity leave) tend to stay involved, bearing a fairer share of the burden of childcare and child-related work later on in the child's life.

Talk

Rowan - You were fab!