Rejecting the Gynocentric Approach to Paternity Leave

On December 22 of 2025, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a tweet about paternity leave and its purposes. In the tweet, the OECD said: “Paid leave for fathers is expanding, but it remains underused. When fathers take paternal leave, it leads to more equal caregiving, higher workforce participation among mothers, and greater gender equality at work.”

Similarly, on July 25, 2023, OECD published a tweet that said: “Women often do the brunt of unpaid work at home, making it harder to advance their careers. Governments should grant paternity leave and employers should encourage fathers to take it. This would help create a more equal workplace.”

A link embedded in the 2025 tweet takes one to an OECD policy brief in October 2025, which provides more details on the group’s views on paternity leave. The policy brief, is titled “Paid leave for fathers: Recent OECD policy trends,” expresses the same sentiments as in the tweets. For example, one of the brief’s “key messages” is that “[f]athers’ leave benefits not only parents and children but also promote gender equality.” This point is expanded upon later in the brief: “Fathers’ use of leave benefits not only parents and children but also promotes a more equal division of care responsibilities and other unpaid work at home and supports gender equality in the workplace, fairness and women’s economic self-efficiency.”

Besides these stated benefits of greater “gender equality” at work and more equal sharing of care responsibilities, the OECD also proposed the following as benefits of paternity leave: improved communication and stronger emotional bonds between fathers and their children; greater overall life satisfaction for both parents, especially mothers; greater mobilization of women’s labour to underpin economic growth; and reduced gender-based discrimination in the workplace and reduced likelihood that only women take leave, thereby mitigating the “motherhood penalty.”

Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)

The OECD’s tweets and brief reminded me of similar information that I had recently seen on the website of Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency when I was conducting research on the sex composition of their employees. On their webpage, titled “Paternal Leave for Men,” the Agency has a section labelled, “Benefits for men taking paid parental leave.” The Agency then lists the following benefits for men:

1. helps normalise working fatherhood, reducing stigma and penalties faced by working mothers;

2. greater engagement with children and stronger relationships partners;

3. improved mental health for fathers and their partners;

4. potential to reduce employers’ gender pay gaps;

5. would lead to a boost to national GDP…due to increased women’s workforce participation;

6. employers benefit from attracting and retaining talent.