When I started this blog 18 months ago, the first topic I discussed was parental leave and the role it played in sex discrimination. And back in those halcyon carefree days of spring 2008, it was easy to call for paternity leave to be increased. Then the recession hit, and things looked rather different. The prospect of allowing a recent father up to 26 weeks to be out of the office seems terrifying in more streamlined, do-more-with-less times. But I for one am in favour of the government’s proposals to do just that.

Here’s why. I still agree with my younger self – equality in the workplace cannot be achieved unless the issue of parental leave is truly sorted out. Evidence crops up all the time to support this. At a recent commons select committee hearing on sexism in the City , Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said there were too many “unfair” examples in the financial sector of women who took maternity leave and came back to find their jobs changed or clients reallocated. At the same hearing, Baroness Prosser agreed that sharing out maternity and paternity leave more equally between parents would help assuage employers’ fears and boost women’s career prospects.

Parental leave should, and could, mean just that – not ‘maternity’ or ‘paternity’, but the leave taken by a recent parent to care full time for their newborn in its first year of life. The EHRC has recently set out its proposals to achieve that . But I prefer the government’s, as described in our Law at work section . These key proposals, if passed, could apply to babies born after 2011:

- Fathers able to take from two to 26 weeks’ leave.
- Mothers have to return to work before fathers can take the leave.
- Fathers paid for leave only when it falls within the 39-week SMP period.
- Fathers must have 26 weeks’ continuous service at 15 weeks prior to the child’s birth to be eligible.

The CIPD’s Mike Emmott rightly points out that “the administrative burdens involved could cause a real headache for employers”. He also comments that the new proposals are based on the same statutory paternity pay (currently £123.06 a week) that only half of fathers are currently willing to take anyway. Research has also found many men unwilling to take paternity leave or ask for subsequent flexible working for fear of harming their career prospects.

Which brings me back to my main point. As long as there is a great discrepancy between maternity and paternity leave, and subsequent flexible working patterns, then there will be a great discrepancy in the career trajectories of men and women who choose to have children. If these new rights are granted, the confidence and support they will give to young fathers to enable them to take additional leave will be increased. At the moment, the message is clear: two weeks is all you get. If the message is that you can get 26 weeks as a parent, irrespective of your sex, then I would suggest – and I admit, this is a fairly bold suggestion – that within a generation we would see much improved gender equality in the workplace and beyond. So some administrative burdens are worth having.