Exploring (in)congruence between calls for gender equity, family leave policy and practice and the experiences of working parents within the UK Higher Education sector

The gender pay gap (GPG), the average pay difference between men and women, provides an overall snapshot of gender inequity within a specific setting. Within the UK Higher Education (HE) sector the GPG was 13.7% in 2022 (UCEA 2023). The causes of the GPG are multifaceted but inextricably linked to the transition to parenthood (Costa Dias et al. 2021). However, HE employer strategies aimed at tackling the gender pay gap and gender inequities predominantly focus on recruitment, management and leadership initiatives (Miller 2022). This paper focuses on the (in)congruence between calls for gender equity and current family leave policy and practice within HE in the UK context. I draw on my PhD research, which explores parents’ decision-making in relation to planning care during their child’s first year in the UK context and parents’ capabilities to share parenting during their child’s first year as they would like to. I employed the Capability Approach (CA) (Sen 1993; 2009) to conceptualise choice and evaluate parents’ differential context-sensitive ability to use work family policies. From a social constructivist standpoint, I explore how gendered parenting norms discursively shape parents’ (micro-level) decision-making when planning care during their child’s first year. During 2020-21, I employed two-staged multimethod qualitative data collection, involving seven online asynchronous discussions with expectant and new parents (a total of 36 participants) and, subsequent, interviews with 12 of the online discussion participants. Ten included a partner. This paper also draws on my experience as an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practitioner in the UK HE sector and recent review of family leave policy in the sector. Focusing on workplace contexts, this paper provides an overview of UK’s HE sector’s family leave policy and practice and shares findings focusing on my study’s participants from the HE sector illustrating parents’ aspirations and enactment of gender justice. I utilise dialogical narrative analysis (Riessman 2008) to reveal (in)congruence between employer policy and practice and parents’ aspirations for gender justice. In outlining parents’ experiences, I expand focus beyond gender and highlight intersectional factors, such as contract precarity and sexual orientation.