Fathers Taking Leave Alone in the UK – A Gift Exchange Between Mother and Father?

Over the last decade there has been a gradual enhancement of British fathers’ rights in the workplace, even though the UK has one of the longest maternity leaves in OECD countries. From April 2003, for the first time, British fathers were given a legal right to take a 2 week paid paternity leave after the birth of a child, building on a 3 month unpaid parental leave entitlement available since 1999. In April 2011 a new right to allow fathers to take up to 6 months Additional Paternity Leave (APL) during the child’s first year, if the mother returns to work before the end of her maternity leave, was introduced. This chapter examines the experiences of six British fathers who were some of the first to take up this opportunity. The study as a whole explored couples’ negotiations and experiences of leave divisions, drawing on the proposition that intimacy is a mediating factor in gender and parenting roles. The accounts portray how, despite men’s lack of formal individual entitlement to leave, they tended to be positioned as the decision makers in taking leave. Women’s structural agency, as higher earners and as holders of the policy entitlement, was often underplayed. Drawing on Hochschild’s writings on the ‘gift economy’ of couples, we suggest that couple negotiations around APL can be conceptualised as a form of gift exchange

Search inside yourself: investigating the effects of a widely adopted mindfulness-at-work development program

PurposeWorkplace mindfulness training has many benefits, but designing programs to reach a wide audience effectively and efficiently remains a challenge. The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of a widely adopted workplace mindfulness program on the mindfulness, active listening skill, emotional intelligence, and burnout of employees in a large, multinational internet company.Design/methodology/approachThe study sample included 123 employees across three company offices who completed the two‐day Search Inside Yourself (SIY) program. Data were collected using self‐report measures pre‐, post‐, and four‐weeks post‐intervention and were analyzed using paired samples t-tests.FindingsSignificant increases were detected in mindfulness and the “awareness of emotion” components of emotional intelligence four weeks post-course. No significant changes were found in participants\u27 self-reported levels of burnout, active listening skill or the “management of emotion” components of emotional intelligence.Practical implicationsTeaching workplace mindfulness and emotional intelligence skills through a highly applied, condensed course format may be effective for increasing mindfulness and the “awareness” components of emotional intelligence. Longer courses with more applied practice may be necessary to help participants build emotional management and listening skills and to reduce burnout.Originality/valueThe present study is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first academic, peer-reviewed assessment of SIY, a workplace mindfulness training program that has been taught to over 50,000 people worldwide

“I Didn’t Know What Was Wrong:” How People With Undiagnosed Depression Recognize, Name and Explain Their Distress

BACKGROUND: Diagnostic and treatment delay in depression are due to physician and patient factors. Patients vary in awareness of their depressive symp-toms and ability to bring depression-related concerns to medical attention. OBJECTIVE: To inform interventions to improve recog-nition and management of depression in primary care by understanding patients ’ inner experiences prior to and during the process of seeking treatment. DESIGN: Focus groups, analyzed qualitatively. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred and sixteen adults (79% response) with personal or vicarious history of depres

Characteristics and lived experiences of modern stay-at-home fathers

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163760/1/2020-Lee-Thecharacteristicsandlivedexperiences.pdfDescription of 2020-Lee-Thecharacteristicsandlivedexperiences.pdf : Main articl