Ideological Discourses of Fathers on Paternity Leave in Spain

Abstract

This article analyzes the ideological discourses of fathers on the use of paternity leave in Spain. The goal is to reconstruct the ideological positions that fathers from different social locations develop around the existence of paternity leave as well as to explore their attitudes toward the impending length equalization of paternity and maternity leaves. A qualitative analysis was applied through the configuration of eight focus groups with fathers from two Spanish cities, Madrid and Barcelona. The results show the diversity of the fathers’ ideological positions in their representations about paternity leave. Different conceptions and degrees of legitimacy are observed, often conditioned by work, and institutional and gender contexts to which these fathers belong. Only some discourses and specific positions back up the change of legislation toward the equivalent duration of paternity and maternity leaves.

Keywords

paternity leave ideological discourse work gender childcare

Introduction: Theoretical Context and Objectives

This article analyzes the system of ideological discourses about parental leave reserved for fathers in Spain. This policy has been introduced in recent decades in different European countries. Spain has not been an exception, although it was not until 2007 that law on equality between women and men was enacted, providing for the first time in Spanish history for a 15-day leave (13 for self-employed workers) aimed exclusively at parents and fully covered (100% of income replacement). In 2017, a modification was approved that extended the paternity leave up to 4 weeks; and in January 2020 the leave was extended to 12 weeks. These modifications represent a significant change since the 1980s when the paternity leave was 2 days borne by the employer. The following table summarizes the most relevant aspects of current parental leave in Spain.¹

Table 1.

Characteristic Features of Childcare Leave in Spain.

Paternity leave: From January 2020, a total of 12 weeks (from 2017 to 2019, 4 and 8 weeks and before, from 2007 to 2017, 15 days) of 100% paid and non-transferable leave. Compulsory 2 weeks after delivery and the remaining 6 weeks to be distributed freely within the first year of having the child. The father must be registered in the social security system and contributing for the specified minimum time.

Maternity leave: Fully paid (subject to a ceiling) 16-week leave for biological maternity, adoption or fostering, provided the mother is affiliated or similar and has been contributing for the specified minimum time. When contributory requisites are not met, the mother is entitled to 6 weeks of leave paid at a flat rate. A 6-week leave after childbirth is mandatory, whilst the remainder may be transferred to the father or converted to reduced hours (from April 2019 the mother may transfer 4 weeks to the father).

Nursing leave: After maternity leave, either parent may opt for nursing leave (although it may be taken by only one of them), consisting of two half-hour breaks or one half-hour shorter working day till the ninth month after birth. If stipulated in collective bargaining agreements or covenanted with the employer, this leave can be used to extend maternity leave by 2 weeks (4 weeks for public officials).

Full-time parental leave to care for children: Right of any worker to suspend their employment contract without pay until the child reaches the age of 3 years; the right to return to the same position is guaranteed for the first year and to a similar position through the third year. The leave may be taken intermittently.

Part-time parental leave to care for children: Right of any worker to reduce their hours by a minimum of 1/8 and a maximum of ½, with a proportional decrease in salary, until the child is 12 years old. The leave may be taken intermittently.

Source: Own elaboration from Meil, Lapuerta and Escobedo (2017).

The use of the leave since 2007 has increased rapidly, reaching 75% of fathers in 2012, promoting—although limitedly—man’s involvement in the care of newborn children (Fernandez-Cornejo et al., 2016; Meil et al., 2018; Romero-Balsas, 2012). Still, Spain has not yet aligned with the most advanced countries in terms of gender equality in childcare (Blum et al., 2017; Moss, 2013). Literature indicates several deficiencies in the social coverage of Spanish family policies, with strong gender inequalities. Sainsbury (1996) shows how the gender perspective must be included when analyzing the social impact of the welfare state. His analysis locates Spain as a traditionally familist country, based on the complementarity of couple gender roles, with the male breadwinner’s dominance. Despite the financial coverage of the existing parental leaves, fathers evolve around this traditional family role. Authors such as Gracia and Esping-Andersen (2015) put forward that these inequalities arise because of the lack of universal family policies that do not consider the causes of work–family balance as a product of gender norms. However, a recent legislation reform in terms of parental leaves modifies the current situation toward the construction of a new model of active citizenship based on the simultaneous exercise of the right and duty to work and care (Escobedo, 2014). In ideal terms, they should be instrumental to the redistribution of time for work–family balance because of a more sustainable use of individual time, with an increase of quality of life and social cohesion.

The progressive introduction of paternity leave systems has contributed to an increase in paternal involvement in recent decades (Bianchi et al., 2000; Cano, 2019; Flaquer et al., 2018; O’Brien & Wall, 2017). More specifically, studies from Nordic countries, historically more advanced than Spain in family policies, point out the positive effect that such policies have on the active involvement of fathers in childcare (Haas & Rostgaard, 2011). Bünning (2015) reaches similar conclusions in his study about Germany, where paternity leaves increase fathers’ involvement in childcare once the leave is over, as well as Meil (2013) in a comparative study of EU countries about the use of paternity leave. However, Meil points out that the results are not consistent across countries; the author points out that some studies from Sweden, Australia, and Denmark did not find a meaningful relationship between the use of the leave and the time invested in childcare, while other works did find a relationship between the leave and the reduction of the sexual division of work. Moreover, the use of paternity leave seems to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for gender equality (O’Brien & Wall, 2017).

Recent studies in different European countries locate ideological factors, linked to couples’ socioeconomic and work constraints and gender issues, which may condition the conception and use of paternity leave (Grunow & Evertsson, 2016; Moss et al., 2019). Most studies analyze the influence of ideological and subjective aspects on the construction of gender identities as well as the articulation of parental leaves with the labor conditions of parents. Within the international sociological literature, it seems that after childbirth couples tend to reproduce traditional gender roles: the father identifies with paid work and the mother with care (Craig & Mullan, 2010; Domínguez, 2015). In line with our findings, this body of work points toward the centrality of work for fathers’ identity: they define their role in the job as “indispensable.” A meaning that is more robust among precarious workers. On the one hand, it has been shown that in the fathers’ narratives there is a certain fear for how they leave might impact their careers and jobs, which is sometimes set as a condition for negotiation within the couple (Brandth & Kvande, 2002). On the other hand, several studies (Borgkvist et al., 2018; Brandth & Kvande, 2016; Doucet, 2017; Peukert, 2018) demonstrated the persistence of gender ideologies that legitimize motherhood as “natural care” based on the belief that women have more experience and are more physically oriented toward care activities. Moreover, childcare appears to be, within this ideological framework, a secondary option for fathers since mothers are supposed to be the main caregivers, responsible for attending to the child and thus taking the corresponding parental leave. While gendered ideologies seem to be dominant, some studies point toward more gender-egalitarian ideologies, which favor the use of paternity leaves, as observed in the collected discourses in this article as well (Bailey, 2015; Brady et al., 2017). In line with international studies on parental leaves, the scope of this work is to put forward a critical appraisal of the existing discourses around paternity leave and investigate how they work ideologically by promoting discursive positions that encourage or discourage taking the leave and weighing the effects of legislative reforms toward its extension.

In recent years, studies on the Spanish parental leave system have increased by addressing different dimensions from a quantitative perspective (Escobedo & Wall, 2015; Flaquer & Escobedo, 2014.). They point out to sex/gender and labor conditions as the key conditions for using parental leaves, as well as the specific type of leave. First, all studies point out the important increase in the use of paternity leaves since 2007. Before this year, the possibility for fathers for obtaining a paid leave required mothers to give away their days of maternity leave, which resulted in low use rate by fathers. Data from the Spanish social security system in 2007 show that the paternity leave rate was 35.2% in 2007, 57.4% in 2011, and from the numbers collected by Romero-Balsas (2012), the rates reached 75% for fathers and 81% for mothers who took parental leaves. More recently, Flaquer and Escobedo (2020) show how the use of paternity leaves is higher than maternity leaves, reaching 86% of all childbirths. This meaningful increase can be explained by the rate calculation, which takes into account the number of births and the employment rates. The higher employment rates of fathers compared to mothers in Spain favors the use of paternity leaves. Moreover, this increase in use seems to show a stronger involvement of fathers in childcare, despite being still partial or limited (Fernández-Cornejo et al., 2016).

However, in Spain—taking into account the different types of leave—men take shorter leaves than women, and with less diversity, while women take most of the reductions and extended leaves, assuming the consequences that these decisions have for their professional careers. For instance, Meil et al. (2018) show the differences in the use of non-paid leaves among men and women, both full time (0.5% of men and 10.4% of women) and part time (1.8% of men and 19.9% of women) as well as differences in duration (24.4 months for men and 36.3 for women). Other authors such as Fernández-Lozano (2018) show similar results, pointing toward the differences in paid work reductions, with 4.1% of men and 25.8% of women. Most importantly, 55% of woman that take the full time leave go back to working full time, while 87% of man do so (Meil et al., 2018). The gender gap is close to the familist ideal type described by Sainsbury (1996) that corresponds at an ideological level to the persistence—despite the changes—of the norms and social gender roles at an individual and institutional level as well. Until recent reforms, the parental leave system reinforced the sexual division of labor among partners, with men more oriented toward productive work and women responsible for care and education.

In the context of work, several studies (Escot et al., 2014, 2012; Flaquer & Escobedo, 2020; Lapuerta et al., 2011) show that working in the public or private sector, the type of contract (fixed or temporary), and the work conditions (paid or self-employed) influence the use of the leave. A total of 81% of paid workers against 39% of those self-employed took the leave (Romero-Balsas, 2012). In general terms, fathers with less stable positions (e.g., self-employed, temporary) take less leaves. However, as Fernández-Lozano (2019) puts forward, these claims must be nuanced by the low use of parental leaves by CEOs and those at high managerial positions. Moreover, there are other work-related factors such as the partner’s job, the work culture, and the orientation toward care that can shape the decision of taking (or not) the leave (Meil, Romero-Balsas, & Castrillo-Bustamente, 2019).

Conversely, the level of education is a relevant factor explaining in fathers’ care responsibilities, particularly the use of leaves. Fathers with a low level of education have lower possibilities of taking a paternity leave: 79% of those with university level education and 81% of those with vocational training took paternity leave, while 65% of fathers with primary education and 66% with secondary education took the leave. Precarious job conditions are an obstacle for taking the leave (Romero-Balsas, 2012). However, the relationship between educational level and leave use needs further research since not all results are conclusive (Flaquer & Escobedo, 2020).

The literature gathered until now follows a methodological orientation that does not dwell into the intersubjective dimension of ideological factors so the knowledge we have to date about its conceptions and developments is still partial. This article intends to sort out the subjective reasons for making the decision of taking (or not taking) the paternity leave. The relatively recent nature of the policy also contributes to the fact that the information we have about its impact is fragmentary.

On the one hand, qualitative contributions focused on the processes of decision-making and use of the leave before the arrival of a child (González et al., 2018; Meil, Romero-Balsas, & Rogero-García, 2017). Within an international framework, findings show how fathers with unstable job positions feel insecure with the arrival of a child, which makes them reject the leave or take it in its most reduced form and duration. Plus, discourses show ambivalences on the conceptions of childcare, which is perceived as hard and rewarding at the same time. For instance, in Romero-Balsas et al. (2013) fathers with limited paternity leaves (15 days or less) understand the leave as a right (like the right to sick leave), while those with longer leaves conceptualize it as a duty (as a responsibility that comes with having a family). González and Jurado (2015) find ideological diversity between those fathers that are involved in caretaking and that follow egalitarian ideals and those that take the leave out of convenience given the institutional and work context, such as having a salary, while their partner is self-employed. Gender also appears as a key factor in the construction of parental expectations and actions.

All the cited works, however, are based on interviews so that the ideological discourses are collected from specific social positions. An interview is relevant for the analysis of discourse about practices and experiences in its most individualized dimension, but it has less potential for capturing the ideological and intersubjective dimensions of these discourses. Moreover, paternity leave has been less studied using the focus group (FG) technique, although there are recent exceptions regarding other aspects of fatherhood (Jurado-Guerrero et al., 2018; Barbeta-Viñas and Cano, 2017). As such, there is the possibility of attending to collective reconstruction, through agreements and disagreements, of the linguistic and ideological frameworks of reference in which paternity leave makes sense.

An intersubjective approach to paternity leave as a social and ideologically constructed object is not common within the literature on parental leaves. This article is a systematic analysis of meaning based on value orientations associated with social use, beliefs, interests, and forms of legitimization that parents develop from the social contexts they partake (gender, work, etc.). It is worth adding that in this project, the social meaning of discourse is configured not only by the isolated consideration of the issue but also by the relationship (not aggregated) that some discourses (or elements of them) maintain with others in the set of a textual structure and, therefore, in the systematic dialogue established by discourses in a social space (Conde, 2009; Ricoeur, 2001). The FG technique differs from the interviewing method because it allows analyzing the process of discursive construction of the social group to which fathers belong (Ruiz, 2018). So the micro situation of the group as a method can be interpreted as an expression of the ideological discourses that exist in contemporary society at a macro level (Ibáñez, 1979). This applied methodology makes FG relevant as an analysis of social and ideological norms referred to particular social groups, which relate dialogically with each other. When participants talk about their object of reference (the paternity leave), they do so by symbolically reconstructing the same object, while implicitly or explicitly conforming to a more or less homogeneous social group. In this way, among the more relevant aspects of the FG dynamics, there is the free circulation of discourses about norms and ideological elements predominant in the different social groups in the sample (see Figure 1). The analysis of consensus formation within each FG is where the shared discourses among all members of the group of reference. That is, attending to the norms and ideological formations that all participants identify with as members of particular social groups.

Figure 1.

Design of the focus groups.

Given the existence of this gap in the literature, this article explores the system of ideological discourses (Conde, 2009; Voloshinov, 1973) in the field of paternity leave in Spain. The ideological process through which leaves become meaningful is understood as the active, multidimensional, and conflicting way by which parents fix their relations with the world and others. This implies an attribution of concrete and contextual meaning to phenomena, such as paternity leave, and collective experiences related to them (Therborn, 1980). So ideologies respond to matrices that order, code, and regulate social experiences and interactions. They are also drivers, justifiers, and thus legitimizers of the action, which take expression in discourse as constitutive elements of social life (Ricoeur, 2001). The legitimation processes that interest us are of a sociological nature and refer to recognition, social acceptance, and the “good arguments” that accompany them (Habermas, 1981), in reference to parental leave. Ideological discourses are linguistic orientations on social experience, pragmatic value ways of (de) codifying the messages that circulate within society.

From this point of view, we want to advance in the knowledge of the ideological representations about the paternity leave of Spanish parents. The specific objectives are: (a) to analyze the different ideological positions on the validity of paternity leave as well as the possibility of extended duration of the leave and (b) to explore the existing relationships between parents’ social positions (their work situations, gender, cultural level) and their discourses.

This analysis is intended to find the main keys of the ideological values underlying the conception of leaves as well as the (de) construction or loss of legitimacy. This approach to the Spanish case is particularly interesting given difficulties associated with work–family balance, with extremely long working hours (Esping-Andersen, 1999), the high rates of unemployment that Spain suffered because of the 2008 economic crisis, and the different legislative reforms carried out in recent years (Meil, Romero-Balsas, & Rogero-García, 2019) as well as because of the (relative) emergence of the “new fatherhood” model (Dermott, 2008; Doucet, 2006; Cano, 2019; Miller, 2010, Barbeta-Viñas and Cano, 2017).

Methods and Design

Following the objectives of this work, we apply an empirical and qualitative method, FG technique to the fathers’ discourse. The design of the sample and the composition of the groups aim to collect information about the paternity leave discourse developed by parents who occupy different social positions. The sampling is intentional and seeks to represent a discursive universe linked to macro social groups. The sampling objective is to define specific social profiles for fathers in terms of socio-demographic variables. This involves developing as a qualitative sampling strategy a typology from relevant variables in order to capture the discursive diversity of the analyzed field. Thus, the selection of informants is carried out based on their belonging to larger social groups. We work with a model of structural representativeness that aims to collect the widest possible set of discourses on the object of study in specific social sectors (Ibáñez, 1979). The saturation of the discursive field is achieved when no major discursive differences are obtained in a particular social context (Glaser & Strauss, 1973). This is delimited by the variables used in sampling, which we present further down.

Five to eight fathers compose the FGs: five groups took place in Madrid and three in Barcelona between the months of May and July 2015. The composition of these eight groups is heterogeneous according to the variables’ position in the labor market and education level. Both are fundamental for parental involvement, as well as for paternity leave use in Spain and other countries. In terms of hypothesis design, we expect to find different ideological discourses associated with the fathers’ social groups defined by these variables. The position in the labor market is linked to the availability of time as well as the economic and emotional stability needed for the care of children. The educational level is a variable that most determines the fathers’ involvement and is associated with more equal gender values (Berger & McLanahan, 2015; Flaquer & Escobedo, 2014; Lamb, 2010; Meil et al., 2018; Romero-Balsas, 2012). We start from the premise of finding discursive differences based on the relationship between fathers and these variables. The homogeneity of the sample is given by being urban fathers with at least one child under 12 years, except for a group made with fathers of at least one child under one year (see Figure 1).² The spouses mostly are active and employed, with one to three of the participants’ spouses being unemployed in each FG. We analyze men who have been fathers recently or have children under 12 years of age, which is the age until which parents can ask for parental leaves under Spanish law, and therefore, the question of work–family balance becomes relevant. Most of them are double-income families, with the expectancy to find in this context discourses that indicate greater commitment to fathering. Recruiting was developed by professional social research companies, which ensured that the fathers did not know each other previously through access to a wide network of contacts. The researchers designed the fathers’ profiles. When contacted, the participants were superficially informed of the object of the study to avoid prefabricated discourses. The fathers represent heterogeneous positions in the social structure, and so they produced intersubjective knowledge with those in similar positions.

The groups lasted approximately two hours; they were dynamized and transcribed literally by personnel of specialized companies from a specific script produced by the research team. Following the initial objectives, the groups’ moderator structured the debate around work–family balance, the existing experiences with paternity leave, and the proposal for equalization of parental leave for mothers and fathers. An open dynamic was prioritized and invited the free spontaneity of the interventions.

The methodological choice of building FG is part of the so-called Madrid tradition of sociological analysis of the discourse system (Ruiz, 2018). It is a socio-hermeneutic approach that proposes the reconstruction of the discourses with which the subjects give meaning to their micro and macro social contexts. This analysis articulates the semantic level of the texts with the pragmatic context of discursive production. The analysis focuses on the use of language in their social enunciation contexts (Alonso, 2013). The micro situation of the discussion groups serves us as an empirical basis for the analysis and interpretation of the social macro situation—the discourse of the groups reflects the social contexts of reference that each group represents (Ibáñez, 1979).

Despite approaching Glaser and Strauss (1973) in terms of the opposition to theoricism and abstract empiricism, this hermeneutic school does not propose any content analysis (statistical or thematic) of the texts produced in the groups, nor a categorical analysis such as the one raised by grounded theory. This approach does not focus on the informational level of the texts by referring to the manifest and denotative level of language. Nor do we propose a strictly linguistic approach, where what is intended is to look for are invariant structures underlying the texts produced by the groups and where the analysis process starts from the analytical decomposition of texts in order to generate codes and categories.

The proposed sociological analysis of discourse aims to address the ideological, connotative, and structural level of language as well as its more latent dimensions. In the practice of analysis, it starts from an integral vision, aiming to address the corpus of narratives in their entirety. It is in a second moment of the analysis; after the first conjectures about the discourses and meanings at stake that the corpus segmentation proceeds, although without losing sight of the totality. We take as a reference the ideas of Ricoeur (2001) when he proposed for the hermeneutical analysis to go from the whole to the parts and to the details, and from the parts to the whole. The first segmentation of the text followed a thematic arrangement so that, in a second moment, these segments (more or less complex phrases) were connected with the ways in which parents rationalized, legitimated ideologically, and valued those aspects that they themselves found most relevant in relation to their relations with paternity leave, as well as with the different social contexts in which they were located.

The work of coming and going from empirical data to interpretative conjectures, including the task of segmentation of texts, has involved two analysis procedures applied to the corpus as a whole. The concrete methodological strategy has been to analyze, first, the polarized and common structure for the set of texts that form the corpus, identifying the main coding axes of paternity leave (Conde, 2009). It is worth adding that here we understand the code in reference to the one called by the structural linguistic metalinguistic function. However, unlike this perspective, we do not understand them as universal, but socially and historically determined (Voloshinov, 1973). The analysis of the codes consists in finding the dimensions that structure the text and polarize it, those dimensions that allow specific developments to the different meanings of the text, and that therefore admit, as a matrix, forms of ideological codification different from the object of study.

Second, we analyze the speeches that define different orientations and perspectives that, with some internal coherence, establish the parents’ ideological positions on the subject under investigation. Ideological positions arise from the analysis of the subjects’ talks in the pragmatic sense—social, contextual—of their statements. Ideological positions guide us to establish the discursive diversity concerning a field; that is to say, the different discursive formations and the social contexts that have contributed to generate them in a more or less coherent way in relation to the object of study. The analysis of the positions goes through attending the most unique expressive turns to relating the social contexts of the subjects with the different arguments, reasons, plot strategies, interests, and roles that they express through the discourse: in this case what parents say and how they say about paternity leave (Conde, 2009; Ortí, 2014; Requena et al., 2019). These positions refer to social subjectivities that acquire relevance depending on the ways of using speech and in this case signifying the processes of paternity and their relationship with parental leave (Edley, 2001).

The methodological reasoning used is abductive, consisting in the realization, until progressive validation, of interpretative conjectures based on the indications provided by the texts about the mentioned procedures: the analysis of existing codes and positions (Kelle, 2005; Ricoeur, 2001). The categories used to subsume the evidence of the empirical material in the six ideological positions found are emerging and configured ad hoc based on the objectives of the work. However, theoretical models and previous work in studies on paternity leave and/or from social sciences inspire them. The verbatims presented during the following section constitute argumentative support for the interpretations made, not so much evidence of initial deductive hypotheses. The discourses found are representative of some social sectors at a given time; they are Weberian “ideal types,” non-exclusive, and socially conditioned models of understanding paternity leave.

Results and Discussion

The analysis of the empirical material has allowed us to build a structural picture of six ideological positions around the conception of paternity leave. Figure 2 summarizes the structure of the semantic field of work–family balance, focusing particularly on the codification of the meanings attributed to paternity leave. This structure polarizes and differentiates the elements of discourse that are endowed with certain stability and establishes limits and conditions of development specific to the ideological significance of the basic elements of this field. It also allows the organization of the material and presentation of each discourse (or ideological position) developed in a differential and conflictive way by the parents in the FGs.

Figure 2.

Structural table of ideological representations on paternity leaves.

From a first overview, the eight discussion groups carried out beyond their internal subdivisions establish a triple ideological divide on the issue of paternity leave.

A critical faction with paternity leave, contrary to proposals to extended paternity leave. This is the faction closest to the male breadwinner model.

A familiarist faction that maintains a more open and tolerant discourse on paternity leave, but as an outcome of negotiation within couple, following gender specialization.

A favorable faction to paternity leave that agrees with making paternity and maternity leaves equal. The projected fathering model would approach co-responsibility.

These three generic factions entail, respectively, discursive differences according to the development made by the groups on the two axes that structure the discursive corpus: the axis referred to the ideological codification of permits (horizontal axis); and the axis of the fathering role (vertical axis), referring to the expectations, values, and desires with which fathers identify in relation to family and work. In the following subsections, as is usually done in qualitative research, the analysis and discussion of the most relevant aspects of each of the discourse blocks and their ideological positions are presented together.

It should be noted, from the outset, the existence of a social image of the paternity leave that does not always correspond to what is established by its legal and legal foundations. We observe a significant gradient in the construction of the ideological legitimation of the paternity leave system. This has led to the discovery of a diversity of ideological positions in relation to leaves, consistent with the relatively plural and multidimensional nature of current fatherhood. This diversity, as we will see, is partially connected to the different work, institutional, and personal contexts in which fathers are—discourses that delegitimize leaves, others that understand them as a right of families, even those that signify it as an individual right and duty of parents. We also found different levels of support for leaves and their possible reforms, finding greater resistance in the sectors of precarious labor in fathers and with low educational levels. Another issue to highlight is that of the six ideological positions found, only in one the discourse links paternal leave and involvement with the needs of the child. This suggests the persistence of an objectifying fatherhood,³ despite the progress made in this regard so far.

The Critical Faction

This position is made up of the ideological positions that emerge from groups with low educational levels, precarious jobs, and/or are unemployed (FG1, FG2, FG4, FG8). For these fathers, the work environment is the main place of identification, where their main responsibility resides. The commitments with the clients, the orders, and the full availability that the job requires within the self-employed are inescapable issues. Thus, they develop an exclusive conception of work–family balance: dedicating time to one area means giving up time for the other. Within this framework they place the paternity leave valuation, which tends to be linked to negative consequences in labor and economic terms, thus losing all legitimacy. These parents build a discourse around their “essentiality” as workers as also find Romero-Balsas et al. (2013). However, this ideologema⁴ with which they self-assign as indispensable employees, even irreplaceable, under penalty of harming (their) companies, is not used in the same way in the significant development of their fathering role. Fathering tends to be relegated to a secondary place, as Marsiglio and Roy (2012) also pointed out.

- As a self-employed person I cannot take days [off], I stop attending to the client, what happens is that you look for tricks, you look for another person who can take care of you, not to leave him hanging, but of course the work is done by someone else and someone else gets paid.

- A self-employed person cannot take 15 days, he can but he stops working (. . .)

- If you do that, most companies. . .

- I can take it every month but I do not get paid, I do not earn (. . .).

- It is possible that when you return your job position has been taken (. . .)

- Also in companies (. . .) is not looked upon favorably [to take a leave] (FG2)⁵

The male breadwinner position

This position tends to justify and rationalize arguments contrary to paternity leave. The leave is taken, fundamentally, as detrimental to work and business development. It is an assessment that is codified within the framework of a regime of comparisons that self-employed advocates of this discourse make regarding what they qualify as “privileged” jobs, the employee being the paradigmatic case. They believe that paternity leave is not a conciliation measure that they can accept without the aforementioned negative consequences in labor and business terms. In this way the discourse tends to deny the character of “right” that in legal terms would have this type of parental leave, as other discourses include. The unstable employment positions in the FG2 and the assumption of the interests of the company in a nucleus of unemployed of the FG1, lead those parents to postulate the practical impossibility of receiving a paternity leave, being consistent with quantitative data on the Spanish case (Fernández-Lozano, 2018). The logic of this assessment means that the longer the paternal leave, the greater the work-related difficulties.

- [She] has its fixed position and when she returns to return to work it is as if it was yesterday, she has that possibility that you as a self-employed worker does not have.

- But we cannot afford it, because if the other person [partner], which is my case, is unstable at work . . . (FG2).

From this perspective, the associative chain of discourse ends up building paternity leave as an unjustifiable abuse of the privileged sectors of the labor market (“To have some nerve,” FG2). Far from adopting a critical stance in the face of precarious work contexts, it tends to close by adopting the path of refusal to leave: the socio-institutional contexts that limit the exercise of paternity are not questioned and the paternity leave is rejected by assuming the traditional male breadwinner role and reinforcing the gender division of labor. Evertsson (2016), Halrynjo (2009) and Plantin (2007) find similar evidence among precarious workers and poorly educated parents in Sweden.

With regard to the comparative grudge that comes with a parental leave system that—these parents claim—does not benefit them at all, the present position orients its discursive strategy to delegitimize in its entirety the very idea of paternity leave. This is how the topic on the unacceptable damage that, apparently, inevitably entails paternity leave for co-workers, especially in small companies (Burnett et al., 2013; Jurado-Guerrero et al., 2018). Similar results referring to the “privilege” that would involve the flexibility measures in the work of parents are found in Borgkvist et al. (2018). The labor conditions of these parents make being responsible of the children an impossible task for them. Moreover, the taken-for-granted role of the mother as the one who should be one responsible for childcare reproduces a traditional gender role differentiation.

The meaningful delegitimization that is projected on paternity leave is rationalized in two different ways, which entail the internalization of traditional gender values. On the one hand, the need for the fathers’ involvement during the child’s first year is questioned. On the other hand, fathers doubt—in coherence with their discourse—that leaves are to be used correctly by fathers in general. They suggest the fantasy that what fathers do on leave has in fact nothing to do with childrearing.⁶

- . . . For a medium-sized company (. . .) having an employee away for 4 months, or your friends stop talking to you directly, because son of a bitch, he is at home doing nothing bumming around, let’s say it like this, or the businessman runs toward a stroke, because of course, he is paying an employee that is not available to him (FG2).

- . . . That [leave] is to be on vacation . . . (FG8).

The debt position

From this discursive position fathers argue that they do not belong, as (former) wage earners, to any “privileged” employment position. This has stimulated a discourse aimed at pointing out the existing difficulties, which are aggravated—they say—for the employees of Spanish companies, especially compared to Nordic countries. However, rather than an ideological battle between nearby positions, there is a “competitive race” of social stereotypes and reasons about the problems and negative consequences of paternity leave for the workplace. It is, therefore, an orientation that tends to a discursive consensus with positions from the critical position toward the leave.

- In my case, I am a salaried employee, you cannot ask . . . (FG2).

- It is what it is, three days. Then you could take holidays or whatever, but it did not work out for the company, it is looked upon badly (FG1).

The significance of paternity leave tends to be based on a moral conception of it. The leave would not be so much a right that the parents could freely exercise, as a donation that the companies—personalized in the figure of the “boss”—would, sometimes, make with those workers who become fathers. Indications of this are found in deictic phrases such as: “they give me,” “I asked myself,” “The salaried employee can exchange anything” (FG2); “First you do your part and then you ask for what is yours,” (FG4). Here we refer to the Maussian gift model, which acquires a different meaning from that of common language. The gift (or gifts) would be an object or action that is exchanged as part of social relations away from economic or commercial exchanges. The gift in this perspective implies a loss on the part of the one who gives and at the same time as an obligation for the one who receives. In this sense, the discourse of these parents expresses more or less latently that the fact of receiving a leave would imply generating a debt with the company and its “boss,” given that these parents verbalize paternity leave in terms of received and individualized exchange. Possibly the predominance of small and medium enterprises in the Spanish economy favors this type of relationship. Authors such as Bourdieu (2000) have pointed out, however, that the donation is an exercise of legitimate domination; it only the one who has the autonomy and possibility of doing so can actually give something. In this case, it is a debt based on the asymmetries of power between employees and employers. A debt that these fathers are obliged to pay back to the extent that they have converted it into a moral relationship: a donation that engenders debt. It is precisely in the payback where discourse places the high costs of the leave–debt for the workers. When the donation is accepted, the counterparts are signaled resignedly: salary reductions, loss of bonus, and compulsory compensation of lost hours. When the fathers reject the debt, the exercise of the leave is waived or discarded. Thus, with the debt code, paternity leave is meant as a costly possibility, fundamentally determined by the companies’ will to donate.

- Yes, my paternity leave is that they give me 15 days, and I took it and told my boss back in the day, because I am a salaried employee, do not worry, as soon as she [his daughter] is born, I will be 2 or 3 days or 4 [away] and will I go back to the office again because I had a lot of work (. . .).

- When my wife gave birth, I took 15 days, but I paid for it, evidently, lowering my salary, not getting the bonus (FG2).

- It depends a lot on the boss you have . . . (FG1).

While this position recognizes and opens up the possibility of receiving—in case of a donation—the leave, the assumption of the secondary role of fathering, together with the more or less tacit acceptance of the companies’ interests and not that of the children is relevant. This suggests a full identification of the fathers as workers. These elements would count as resistances that could explain the negative attitude of these parents to qualify for the leave. It also justifies the critical position with the paternity leave system, both the current one and any extension proposal. The great similarities between these results and those provided by Fódor and Glass (2017) in the case of Hungarian mothers are noteworthy: their account also transforms the leave law into a “gift” dependent on the benevolence of employers. With the difference that because of their care-centered gender role, they are forced to accept it, in more or less negotiated terms, with the labor counterparts.

The Familiarist Faction

In the familiarist faction, the conception of paternity leave is understood as a legitimate right. The leave is not limited only to the semantic field of work and business; the family takes an important place in discourse. It is accepted and valued that there must be a certain balance in the double role of parents and workers, although differently depending on the positions. The discourse is not intended to say that fathers cannot and should not qualify for permission. Rather, the legitimate possibility of doing so is recognized. The code from which the leave is spoken is that of the family decision; therefore, a right to distribute within the couple, in accordance with the traditional ideological model of the familist social policy model in Spain (Sainsbury, 1996).

References to “the parents” in generic terms are characteristic of this faction. This is how it is recognized that within the social group there are couples who decide to give responsibility to fathers, in the sense of planning, supervising, and mobilizing resources for the welfare of their children (Lamb, 2010). So they are who accept the leave. It is an attitude that, in this way, is tolerant and comprehensive toward the current parental leave system. It does not oppose to a proposal for equalization of leaves duration for mothers and fathers as long as it is flexible enough to leave the distribution of the days to the couple. The traditional position emerges between parents with diverse levels of education, precarious jobs, and are unemployed (FG3, FG8 nuclei); Within this faction, the liberal position is more common in parents with higher levels of education (FG1, FG6,FG7 nuclei) and more stable positions in the labor market (FG4).

- I think it should be optional, that the couple could determine their concrete situation, what is best for them, a negotiable thing (FG1).

- Something shared, well, I do not say no, but it depends on the job of each partner and how the family has it figured out. In my specific case, where she did not work, I [I didn’t take more than] two months [of leave] (FG6).

Traditional position

It is in references to their particular cases, however, where the discourse tilts toward traditionalism. Fathers distance themselves from the possibility of taking the leave when they bring forward their particular cases. So there is a tacit reproduction of traditional gender roles. These fathers project on the mothers the role of the primary caregiver especially during the year after childbirth. As with the previous positions, arguments are related to the costs of taking advantage of them at work (loss of purchasing power, of clients, problems with the company or co-workers, etc.). Fathers justifying their difficulties at work by appealing to a monolithic and unmodifiable “corporate culture,” which is strongly against—they claim—paternity leave, especially in small and medium companies. These men ignore the right to fathering, even in the case of mothers working outside the home. The role of mothers as primary and in fact only caregivers is taken for granted. Spanish research finds matching results (Jurado-Guerrero et al., 2018), as well as Halrynjo (2009) reports on the difficulties of fathers with stable work positions for achieving work–family balance.

The priority given to mothers in the care of young children is legitimized here by means of a (supposed) biological and cultural “programming.” Mothers would be more prepared than fathers in every way to care for their children, especially after birth. These parents establish a symbolic continuity—marked by gender stereotypes—from childbirth to care tasks: mothers would thus have certain biological predispositions, “natural” breastfeeding, as well as the custom of cultural norms that guide them to care. This would justify the aforementioned role of responsible to the children: “by their very nature they must be the mothers who are with the young at first” (FG3). Different researches on the use of paternity leave find similar discourses marked by gender differences (Aunkofer et al., 2018; Doucet, 2017; Grunow & Evertsson, 2016; Rose et al., 2015).

This value system is used to locate ideologically and rationalize, justifying and legitimizing, the secondary role of the father in the care of children. These parents conceive a paternity model that would be oriented to “help,” “collaborate,” and “support” mothers in very specific aspects related to young children (“take weight off [the mother]”, FG1; “help her with the tasks” FG3, FG8). In the discussion groups, especially in the FG3, we find a kind of parental expectation that favors this symbolic self-location in a secondary place with respect to the mother. For example, FG3 nuclei⁷ close to active fathering involvement project on the dominant subfaction feelings of guilt and sadness for having lost an “opportunity” to be with their children. However, it has tended to reject—at the preconscious level of emotional projections—this meaning of “lost opportunity.” In this way, this position not only relativizes the transcendence of the role of father in the first moments of the life of the children but also builds a legitimate fatherhood that does not necessarily go through the assumption of a co-responsible father model, not by taking advantage of paternity leave, nor in terms of need (“a child needs two arms, not four,” FG3). In addition, these parents do not fail to mention, strategically, the expectations that mothers have of fulfilling the ideal model of “good mother,” an expression of the ideology of gender, as several recent analyzes have observed (Evertsson et al., 2018; González & Jurado, 2015). They justify the resistance to paternity leave, placing themselves in a more traditional conception of the sexual division of work and care.

- Man, you just said it; you did not take them [the leaves].

- But what is losing? That’s not losing . . . I arrived [from work] and I bathed her [his child], and what did I miss?

- (. . .) You say, "I had a commitment to the company, one has to have it [the commitment], but what about the commitment you had with your son, or your daughter in this case? (. . .)

- . . . The night bottle I gave it to her, so what? Nothing happens, what is it that I missed? (. . .)

- There were fifteen [days of paternity leave], but I did not take them.

- Ok, ok, but if the problem is not that . . . I ask myself something else; You, being able to take them, why didn’t you do it? Because my wife took them and I took them.

- Because I am quite committed to my work (FG3).

The liberal position

This position signifies the paternity leave in terms of the right exercised by the couple; its concrete implementation depends on the negotiation between its members. Couples talk about their conflicts of interest that arise on how things should be done, for example, in the care of a child (Evertsson & Nyman, 2009). It is, however, an opening that limits an effective negotiation based on equal gender opportunities (Brandth & Kvande, 2002).

A discursive thread of the FG6 puts forward that the decision on who takes the leave is based on avoiding the loss of family purchasing power, so the negotiation takes into account the salary of both members, in line with qualitative and quantitative studies carried out in Spain (Flaquer & Escobedo, 2014; Romero-Balsas et al., 2013). At the same time, within the FG7 of fathers with a high level of education, the “career” factor is added, linked to the high studies of these fathers and their expectations of work promotion. Thus, not only the salary is a relevant factor for negotiation but also the impact of the leave on the “professional career” of fathers and their expectations of promotion. The more progressive nuclei make it clear that this “negotiation” tends to push mothers toward taking most of the leave because they tend to have worse working conditions. This idea constitutes a resistance to the possibilities of change through negotiation (Peukert, 2018). However, the nuclei of the same FG7, while recognizing this unequal situation, value ambivalently the impact that the leave might have had on their professional career. The cores of FG6 and FG4 go in the same direction, they only accept the legitimacy of leaves that do not, according to them, put a burden on family purchase power and work promotion expectancies. This suggests, in line with Brandth and Kvande (2016) and Wada et al. (2015), the existence of a tension again between the role of worker and that of father.

- Of course, if this means that you are still paid, hey, perfect (FG6).

- And in the end the decision is yours and you have to take realistically into account that it [the leave] is a disadvantage later on for your professional career (. . .)

- The logical thing is that the one taking the leave to be the one with the lower salary (FG7).

The stronger discursive consensus revolves around harmonizing the disparity of interests at stake, because of the alleged balance between their role as fathers and workers. Arguments favorable to equality between mothers and fathers do not problematize their childrearing skills. It is a consensual formula that, however, only develops in more restrictive proposals, considering 16 weeks for both mother and father as excessive. Moreover, the arguments around salary levels and the future advances in the professional career suppose a brake toward the ideological acceptance of making the leaves equal. Hence, in FG6 the proposal emerged of establishing by law 8 weeks for the mother and 8 for the father. This type of approach coincides with those at the core of the FG7, which are linked to the perspective of equality between mothers and fathers with a certain balance between their role as fathers and workers.

- In my case, I consider that this [16 weeks of leave] would be excessive. Four months I think it would be excessive (. . .)

- Shared perhaps. That is, two months and two months (. . .)

- Well, share four months, two and two? It would still be excessive, for me, huh? Of course, it depends on the moment, but at that time for me it was excessive (FG6).

The Involved Father Faction

This faction emerges among parents with high education level and mostly stable work (FG5, FG6 and FG7). Unexpectedly, nuclei of precarious fathers without education appears in FG2 as well as marginally in FG3 and FG1. This faction appears as a reaction to the more traditional discourses contrary to paternity leave. Their participation in the groups has been rather “tactical”: the discourses acquire a reactive style where fathers counter-argue and resignify the discourses that are at the furthest from their positions. These fathers report the “commitment” they have with their children and their families, not so much with the company, which here is relegated to a second place. The ideology of “essentiality” as workers is denied, a central topic in discourses contrary to the leave. The negative consequences that the leave could cause them in their jobs are in this case relativized. In fact, they project the responsibility of companies to respect and comply with the right that constitutes the leave. They give legal arguments and point out to contractual possibilities such as that of eventually replacing workers during the leave. Although a good part of these fathers are in a qualified and stable work position, which facilitates the construction of this discourse (Gillies, 2009; Plantin, 2007), there are nuclei from less stable work contexts, as Shows and Gerstel (2009) also find with working class fathers, which exhibit similar discursive features.

- You must have a commitment to the company, but what about the commitment you have with your child? (FG3).

- The leave is not assumed by the company and you can hire someone, an internship contract that does not pay fees and she is doing the work of the other person and . . . That is, there is a mechanism of the company to substitute the worker (FG5).

Position of the “new father”: permission as an individual right

This position is developed based on the fathers’ explicit and desire to be and act such. A desire that takes expression in the speech in the form of expectations that put in a central and priority place the exercise of paternity from the birth of the children. To counteract rival discourses, these nuclei value the arrival of a child, expressing dispositions to care, awareness of feelings in relation to the children and attention to their development. These elements coincide with the findings of Dermott (2008) and Miller (2011) in England and Evertsson et al. (2018) in Sweden, in their studies on new forms of paternity.

- And very well, it makes you feel something that . . .You also notice the time you spend with the child. At the beginning, also, you do many practical things, what I said, right? You do many [things] to support the woman. And also since you have more days, you have the possibility to enjoy it a little more (FG7).

- . . . It’s not just that I want to, it’s that I also want to enjoy her (FG2).

Within this framework of expectations and values, paternity leave is codified as a proper, individual, and non-transferable right, which “corresponds” to fathers (FG3, FG2). In the development of the discussion of the FG3, clear indications of this conception appear as a revealing semantic association emerges between the paternity leave and the “holidays” that are guaranteed to every worker—in principle—as a right. It is probably a tactical comparison that aims to develop a naturalized and incontestable argument against the most ideologically distant nuclei. However, from a contextual perspective, the effects of this discourse place vacation and paternity leave at the same ideological rank. Far from comparing the leave with vacations, the homology between those situations is emphasized. That is, an individual right from which each worker, regardless of their employment and conditions, should benefit from without major consequences.

- I said I would take them [the days] and I did. Because I had a responsibility toward my company at the time but I told them that I wanted to take those fifteen days because they belonged to me (. . .)

- Your work is going to be done by him and me. They will not hire anyone.

- And you do not see the vacations in the same way?

- Yeah, but then I am the one leaving.

- But it is you who had a son.

- It is [a] different [thing].

- It is a problem of companies that do not know how to organize (. . .)

- If I have 3 days or 15 days for the birth of a child, I, these are my days . . . It is not my problem (FG3).

From this perspective of the leave as a right, fathers have the right, like mothers, of being recognized as main caregivers and not be prejudiced, as some research indicates, by institutional measures (Bailey, 2015; Brandth & Kvande, 2016; Jurado-Guerrero et al., 2018). They also add, with a view to legitimizing their position in the FG2, that the attribution of exclusive responsibility to mothers is a form of machismo toward which they are opposed which may actually suggest changes in the hegemonic masculinity model of these fathers (Peukert, 2018). Such discourse weakens the gender barriers because these fathers claim the legitimacy of their orientations toward care, traditionally associated with the mothering role.

The “generative father”

The discourse of this position signifies and legitimizes the right of parents to permission, mainly by two complementary discursive threads of ideological codification regarding the previous positions: the obligation of the leave and the needs of the children. On the one hand, these fathers use the “compulsory” ideology in their ideal representation of the leave. This indicates that it is not enough for the leave to be defined as an individual right, as in the previous position, but that “it would have to be mandatory” (FG5). This obligation tends to emerge, on the one hand, given the awareness that there are fathers who disregard their responsibilities as caregivers; and on the other, given the recognition that some companies do not comply with the law, which makes it impossible for fathers to exercise their own right. It is a centrifugal discursive thread, with implications for the social set of fathers.

The nature of the right and duty of the leave is rationalized with a significant argument of “necessity.” Here the discourse tends to refer to their particular cases. A need linked to the desire and expectations of the exercise of paternity, as in the position of the “new father” as well as the recognition of the vulnerability of the newborn child and the partner who has given birth. This dimension is what expresses the significant and affective development of these properly generative fathers. Following the framework proposed (Brotherson et al., 2005; Kelly, 2018), this discourse speaks for the first time in our groups about the needs of the baby, linking paternity leave to the welfare of children. Thus, paternity leave is justified with an affective discourse that subjectivizes the relationship with children. The significance of emotional empathy with the baby, the importance of being with him from the first moments of his life to strengthen the father–son ties as well as the possibility that parents can meet and know how to identify at any time the needs and wishes of the child. This, they say, is only possible through practice and a presential relationship during the first year of the child. So they reject any secondary place for the father, as well as the familiarist positions that accorded mothers the priority in care. Beyond his desire to act as fathers, the relationship that acquires centrality is that oriented to the needs of the children, as well as a specific effort directed to their care and to be availability for them. Some international research reaches similar conclusions (Brady et al., 2017; Doucet, 2006).

- Advantages that would have?

- Human

- For the baby.

- Support for women

- Especially the first month that is very complicated (. . .) you maybe the child is crying and you give him the bottle and the child wants you to stop giving it to him because his tummy hurts, of course, with the third bottle you realize it . . .

- It’s the experience that the child is getting the hang of it (FG5).

Conclusions

In this article we analyzed the ideological discourses in Spain around paternity leave and its discontent. The sociological discourse analysis shows that the social contexts of fathers largely conditioned the ideological discourses of the groups. On the one hand, we link the discourses that delegitimize the leave with the strengthening of gender roles and the reproduction of traditional father models among the most precarious, less qualified salaried workers. On the other hand, among fathers with more stable work conditions and qualified jobs, the discourse followed the “new fatherhood” line, developing an ideological rationalization aimed at justifying the relevance of the leave for prioritizing the fathering role. However, it is noteworthy that this relationship has not been univocal and has had some exceptions: precarious father’s nuclei have challenged traditional gender divisions, expressing expectations of fathering involvement and the need for paternal leave.

The set of findings presented, despite evidencing the lack of legitimacy that there is in certain social factions, should not be interpreted as a justification for taking a step back in the political of the improvement of the Spanish parental leave system. On the contrary, we read them as a basic diagnosis oriented to the detection of problems and resistances in the service of more ambitious proposals. In this direction and according to the cited literature, the findings once again confirm the degree of conditioning (not exclusive but relevant) that the characteristics of the Spanish work condition, not only on the patterns of paternity leave use but also in its same ideological conception, discouraging its use.

In terms of political implications, these findings suggest the urgent need of working toward the homogenization of parental leaves gender wise. These could generate more egalitarian effects between men and women because it would invite both members of the couple to adopt a coresponsible attitude in childcare, also in different moments and time periods, and would facilitate going back to work for mothers. However, as we already pointed out, such legal measures must be fully covered in order to become a real incentive for fathers, specially with those who occupy more precarious positions in the job market. Those are the fathers that generated the most resistant discourses toward the proposals for equalization of parental leaves. This is clear evidence on the existing link between the levels of coverage of parental leaves and their use (Castro & Pazos, 2016).

The limitations of this article are, on the one hand, leaving out the analysis of factual behaviors, and on the other, the structural character of the representativeness of the empirical data used. However, it is a relative weakness, since these results can be used methodologically and strategically with a view to a future quantitative approach to the phenomenon. The discussion groups meet qualitative criteria of social representativeness and generalization, although only in the form of hypotheses. It would be plausible an investigation through a survey that aims to analyze how the ideological positions found among the different social sectors of parents are distributed. On the other hand, future developments of this work would have to consider a new design more specific for objectives such as those marked here. It would be useful, for example, to gain homogeneity in the discussion groups, as well as to incorporate non-urban parents, who have been left out of our sample.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article has been thanks to the project “The father implication in childrearing in Spain” (CSO2012-33476) financed by the research subprogram 2008-2011 from the Ministry of Economy and Competitivity, with Lluís Flaquer as the IP.

ORCID iD

Marc Barbeta-Viñas

Notes

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