Most Ukrainian men don’t stay at home with the kids, even if they might want to. Instead, this parenting responsibility still mostly falls on women, worsening the gender balance in family life.
Despite the fact that Ukrainian fathers’ right to paternity leave is enshrined in the Labor Code of Ukraine, most men choose not to take it. According to a 2013 report by the Center for Social and Labor Research, only 1 percent of men in the country take this form of leave.
Meanwhile, a number of international studies indicate that a father’s involvement before, during, and after the birth of their baby has plenty of positive effects on the child and family as a whole.
There are several reasons why so few men take paternity leave. Some shy away from the social stigma that still exists in Ukrainian society while others fear for their jobs.
Scholars and international organizations think that stigma experienced by family members is an important challenge in the fight for gender equality.
The non-profit organization Save the Children, for instance, believes that targeting fathers is key to achieving gender equality and improving quality of life. According to their 2015 report, the State of the World’s Fathers, dads with close connections to their children live longer, have fewer health problems, and are more productive and generally happier.
Patriarchal history
During the many years of communism in Ukraine, it was seen as improper for a man to sit at home with children, take care of the house, and earn less than his wife. Unlike in other countries, however, a Soviet wife was not supposed to only be a mother and homemaker. She had to work, as well as maintain the family home and raise the kids.
In many ways, such a Soviet approach to childcare persists in Ukraine to this day. But modest improvements are coming, albeit slowly.
In March 2019, the Verkhovna Rada registered a draft law that would allow Ukrainian men to take 10 paid days off work after the birth of their child. It’s a step towards decreasing the childcare burden on women and improving family life, but other challenges remain.
Fathers often fear that they will lose their jobs should they take paternity leave. This leave can also be paid at a lower rate, or even not paid at all.
Meanwhile, there is some government support for childcare, but not much. Parents receive benefit payments totaling about 41,280 hryvnias ($1,580) from the state. This amount, paid in installments, is intended to help with care during the first three years of the child’s life — but it’s not much and parents still need to work.
Artem Chapeye, a Ukrainian journalist and author, described his own experience of paternity leave in his book Father on Leave. According to him, equal parental leave will help transform the perception that caregiving is a female responsibility.
Chapeye notes that the traditional roles of women and men are socially constructed and could be transformed into a new family model where a father has the option to care for children at home and the mother could work and earn money for the family.
This idea of the ‘new father’ has been particularly shaped by Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, for example, an employer is required to provide 480 days of parental leave at 80-percent of the parents’ salary and the parent can divide these days as they wish.
In Germany, the father of a newborn can ask for up to three years of paternity leave. During the first year, the company should provide compensation of 65–67 percent of the father’s salary.
Even in Ukraine, fathers who take time off from work to spend time caring for their children say they have benefitted from the practice.
Breaking the stigma
Denys Cherniavskyi, 28, lives in Kyiv with his wife and five-month-old twins Tonya and Yana. He has been working for three years as a salesperson at Goodwine, a delicatessen in Kyiv.
Cherniavskyi’s wife has a job at an international organization that provided her with 20 weeks of paid parental leave. But once her maternity leave ended, the twins were still too young to live with a nanny.
“Firstly, our parents helped us with the kids. Now there’s just me and my wife, and we do not have a nanny’s help,” Cherniavskyi says. “Our schedule is extremely chaotic.”
As a result, the couple decided it would be best for Cherniavskyi to stay home with their daughters.
Cherniavskyi believes that people should change their understanding of male and female roles and gender equality.
“Some people called me the father-mother,” he says. “But that’s not important to me. What matters now is to stay calm with my daughters at home.”
Cherniavskyi says he is glad he has a chance to help his wife and to be with their daughters. He loves to wake up with them, to cook and do some housework.
“I am happy when they coo and laugh,” he says. “When you see with your own eyes how your children are growing — this is one of the most exciting things.”
Cherniavskyi says men should be more involved in raising their children. But structural problems affect whether they will be.
Goodwine paid Cherniavskyi two salaries for his twins and also allowed him to retain his employment for three years. In comparison, financial help from the government and 10 paid days off (as proposed in the new draft law) look like drops in the bucket.
Maksym Avramenko, 37, is having a similar experience with paternity leave. He lives in Kyiv with his wife and five-year-old daughter Sonya.
Avramenko works as a chef in a restaurant. His wife is a financier. For her, longer interruptions of her career could lead to a loss of skills and broken ties with colleagues and friends.
There is also another challenge: Sonya has a disability and she needs special care and assistance from her parents. But the household also needs an income. The Ukrainian government pays the family approximately Hr 1,300 ($49) a month for childcare, with an additional payment of about Hr 150 ($5.50). During the three years of Cherniavskyi’s paternity leave, that social aid has been increased by Hr 100–150 ($3.70-$5.50).
But despite her disability, Sonya’s parents provide her with an active life, as well as many daily activities and therapies in different parts of the city. Those require travel, and they need to be paid for.
“Today, for instance, we are going to the speech therapist, then Sonya has English classes,” he says. “When Sonya turned 2, we decided that I’d take leave and stay at home instead of my wife.”
At home, the married couple divides up parental responsibilities. When Avramenko’s wife has a day off work at the weekend, she helps with the housework.
Avramenko thinks that people should change their ways of thinking and be more understanding and empathetic about paternity leave.
“My mother is not against the idea of paternity leave, but she still thinks that the mother should sit with a child while the father should work and earn money,” he says. “This was a family model from generation to generation. They lived by those rules.”
Avramenko’s wife worries that Sonya rarely sees her, he says. But when she does have a day off, that time is dedicated to her daughter.
