Firstly many thanks to all of you who took the time to fill in our 2004 Paternity Leave Questionnaire.

122 people took part in the survey and the results once again make interesting reading:

Over 80% of Fathers took some paternity leave after the birth of their last child.

Of those who took no paternity leave, most were self employed and could not get adequate 'cover' to allow them any time off at all.

Of the 80% who took time off:

• a majority, 56% took between 1-2 weeks off;



• 22% had between 2-3 weeks off;



• 13% took less than a week off.

There was an almost equal split between those fathers whose 'paternity leave' was in addition to annual holiday entitlement and those who had to take time from their holiday entitlement to cover this paternity leave period.

Of those whose paternity leave was paid leave in addition to holiday entitlement, the majority (60%) received between 1 and 2 weeks paid leave.

25% of all respondents said that the company they worked for did not have a paternity leave policy, (although a significant number of these respondents were self employed).

Only 24% of all respondents said that their companies had 'other' child friendly policies in place. Of those who had some other initiatives, by far the most popular was 'flexitime'.

Interestingly, even though paternity leave entitlement legislation has come into place in the last 12 months over 74% of all respondents said they were not aware of any changes to their company's paternity entitlements changing in the last 12 months.

As always we got some great comments from those of you who filled in the Questionnaire:

From one mother whose partner only received 3 days leave: "As the average age of parents increases the less likely it is that our parents are physically able to help. My personal view is that paternity leave should be 2 weeks."

The plight of the self employed in the UK was raised by several respondents and was further highlighted by one respondent who lives in France: "French Law gives the right to every father to take 2 weeks paternity leave - paid by the Government or the employer."

Even with the new paternity entitlement, most people who commented felt it did not go far enough to support 'new' fathers: "£100 a week just won't cut it for our mortgage - so he had to save up holiday leave instead."

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