The effectiveness of corporate gender equality plans in improving leave provisions for fathers in Spain

ABSTRACT

Official Spanish policy seeks greater gender equality by, among other things, encouraging men’s use of their legal rights to parental leave and requiring employers to implement equality plans. This article contains a first-ever analysis of the extent to which company equality plans are used to improve upon the legal provisions governing parental leave and whether those improvements actually encourage greater leave use by men, help to degender leave use and promote fathers’ co-responsibility for childcare. The improvements implemented by companies are analysed against a backdrop of economic crisis (2007-2016), during which public policy underwent no substantial change. An analysis of the gender equality plans in place among 107 ‘gender equality employers’ (GEEs) revealed that most included no enhancement of the existing legislation and only a few work organizations provided incentives for men to use leaves as part of their work-life balance strategies. Substantial progress in this regard can only be expected through increasing government provision of parental leave aimed at men and/or increasing government pressure on companies to encourage leave taking by men.