May 27, 2025

Are parenthood issues even more important today?  

For several years now, we’ve been witnessing an extension of family settings and parenting modes. Whereas in our imaginations, corporate measures in this area were aimed at pregnant women, today they must involve fathers more, single-parent families (which concern  80% of women in France and are steadily increasing) but also the sandwich generation (parents looking after both their children and their parents).

The COVID-19 crisis has further amplified the blurring of boundaries between professional and personal lifeand working parents have been hard hit. In particular, mothers who, in 2021, claimed to be 15% less confident than men about their professional future in France. Internationally, it’s almost 1 in 2 women considered having children to have a negative impact on their career path in 2024.

What about equality in parenthood? 

At a time when 89% of employees are parentsnot everyone experiences parenthood in the same way.According to anIFOP in 2021the professional mental workload for women with children was 5.2, compared with 4.6 for fathers. As a result, mothers are more likely to work part-time after childbirth ( 31% of womenvs. 3% of men), which has an impact on their salaries and career development. In France, women’s incomes fall by 20%, while men’s rise by 5%, in the 5 years following the arrival of a child.  

Implementing measures to promote parenthood therefore means compensating for and reducing gender inequalities, with positive effects for employees…. But also on organizations.

What’s in it for the company?  

According toINSEE and DARES32% of mothers consider that they do not have enough time to do their work properly, because of the mental workload family. Fathers, on the other hand, increase their working hours after the arrival of a child, and start to exceed their usual working hours.On the one hand, this leads to the frustration of not being able to do one’s job properly, and on the other to the feeling of being overwhelmed.These are all psycho-social risk factors that can lead to burn-out.But they can also lead to the withdrawal of mothers from the job market, an increase in sick leave, conflicts within workgroups, and consequent loss of value for the company. Preventing and acting to avoid these risks and gendered trajectories in parents’ careers enables companies to guard against these financial and human risks.

In addition, adopting a parental HR policy helps the company to develop an attractive employer brand and helps to retain its employees, particularly young people between the ages of 25 and 35. In fact, nearly 82% of employees would be willing to change employer for one offering more parenting-related services. When it comes to the most important measures requested by employees, the majority would like to see childcare places (58.3%), followed by additional childcare (54.2%) and flexible working hours (53.1%).

The issues surrounding childcare are crucial, and can represent a strategic investment in reducing staff turnover and boosting employee loyalty. A number of corporate initiatives are helping to make up for the lack of government support in this area, such as the Cakes Body employees in the United States, amounting to $36,000.

What are the best and worst ideas for supporting parenthood? 

The most widely deployed measure for managing parenthood issues in the workplace is increasing teleworking, which concerns 80% of them. However, this initiative goes against the grain employee expectationsOnly 29.1% of them do so. A practice that needs to be qualified. According to studies, women in particular, who are more often surrounded by children than men ( 48% vs 37%) and are less likely to have a dedicated, isolated workspace (29% vs. 42%).

According to the Gender Equality Diversity European and International Standard (GEEIS), the preferred measure is to compensate parental leave, with particular emphasis on paternal leave, especially during the child’s first months.

In fact, nearly one father in three does not take advantage of this leave, while according to several researchers such as Hélène PérivierAccording to several researchers, such as Hélène Périvier, this leave is a major lever for redressing gender inequalities and enhancing the development of both parents. It is therefore essential that organizations encourage fathers to take this leave in its entirety immediately after the birth of the child. The company can also offer longer leave for the father, or a bonus to encourage him to take it.

Sweden, for example, has the longest parental leave (240 days per parent) and one of the most generous in the world (with an allowance corresponding to 80% of salary for 80% of the maximum leave period). This measure has been a success, with 90% of fathers taking advantage of it, and productivity rates ranked among the best in the world.

In addition to the main measures relating to flexibility or the financing of childcare solutions, organizations can continue to invest elsewhere! For example, they can set meeting times at the beginning and end of the day to avoid penalizing parents, guarantee the right to disconnect or offer a family-friendly health insurance scheme, particularly for single-parent families…

These are all ways of fully integrating parenthood to reduce the production of psycho-social risks for parents, improve their well-being and thus their ability to work better.

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