HE doesn’t need better parental policy. It needs better practices

There is no doubt that a significant number of university staff have made a New Year’s resolution to try for a child in the next 12 months. And no doubt many more have resolved to try for a promotion. But for any that have made both resolutions, the way ahead is likely to be tricky.

What does it take to make care and career genuinely compatible? The UK government’s new review of parental leave and pay, announced in July, promises overdue reform but for many parents working in universities, the real test is not how we improve policy on paper but whether workplaces can make fairness part of daily reality.

Universities’ parental policies might look progressive, espousing commitments to equality and flexibility. But as chair of a women’s professional network, I see first-hand how the gap between policy and lived experience still shapes how care and careers unfold.

For instance, universities often express a commitment to shared caregiving, whereby men are given time off to share the burden of caregiving for newborn babies. Yet the wider policy architecture that underpins it remains weak. Shared parental leave, introduced a decade ago, has been taken up by only about 5 per cent of eligible fathers because the statutory paternity pay of £187.18 a week makes doing so unrealistic for many. Although some universities do enhance family leave pay, provision varies widely across the sector. Where enhancement is absent, the gap between support on paper and what staff can realistically afford remains stark.

The result is an unequal starting point. When fathers cannot afford to take time out, mothers shoulder more of the caregiving and the longer-term career cost. What begins as a policy gap quickly becomes a structural divide.

Research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that much of the UK’s gender pay gap opens up after childbirth. OECD data suggests similar patterns across developed economies but the UK’s gap widens particularly dramatically. Poorly paid leave, expensive childcare and inflexible working expectations leave lasting scars.

These pressures are no less evident in higher education. Women commonly return from maternity or parental leave to find their career momentum slowed or stalled. Advance HE’s 2023 analysis shows that women remain concentrated in lower pay grades and under-represented at senior levels, and these patterns persist long after returning to work. Flexibility is available in many cases but using it can still come at the expense of progression. Caregiving continues to carry an unspoken professional penalty.

These outcomes are sustained by the culture through which universities define “good work”. Success is still linked to uninterrupted productivity and constant availability, conditions that are fundamentally at odds with caregiving. Promotion and workload systems rarely recognise that contribution can take different forms or follow different rhythms. Researchers at the University of Reading call the resulting limit on career progression the “care ceiling”.

Here, in the messy middle between policy and practice, good intentions tend to fall apart. Even though flexible-working policies are now widespread across the higher education sector, research by the University and College Union suggests that many staff with caring responsibilities remain uncertain about using them in practice, amid concerns about inconsistent support and the potential for career penalty.

In many cases, returners from maternity leave report coming back to full teaching loads, urgent marking commitments or major project deadlines set without regard for the timing of their leave. These are not minor oversights but symptoms of a system that struggles to accommodate the realities of parental absence.

Part of the difficulty lies in dispersed responsibility. Departments often bear the cost when staff take leave, creating quiet disincentives for them to offer the flexibility promised by policies drawn up in the administrative centre.

Moreover, equality data collected for schemes such as Athena Swan is rarely used to track how parental leave affects promotion or retention. Phased returns or workload adjustments depend on individual managers, whose confidence and training vary widely. One practical step to address these local frictions would be to create a centrally supported fund that departments can draw on to cover parental leave.

Consistent structures matter just as much as money. A clear approach to phased returns, predictable adjustments to workload and routine tracking of what happens to staff after leave would achieve far more than another set of aspirational policy statements. Integrating parental impact data into HR reporting, promotion processes and workforce planning would also help institutions understand where progression is stalling.

Targeted support is also crucial. The difference between whether a returnee flourishes or quietly stagnates can depend on access to childcare partnerships and well-designed re-entry schemes that include protected time to rebuild research or professional momentum.

Leadership example remains critical, too. When senior staff take parental leave or work flexibly without hesitation, it signals that care and ambition can sit comfortably together. Research from the British Academy shows that institutions with stronger parental support and more generous maternity pay achieve higher rates of retention and progression for women. And all the steps above can be implemented now, well before the government’s review reaches any conclusions.

Indeed, if the government is there to set the floor, UK higher education now has the opportunity to raise the ceiling – creating a parental leave system that genuinely works for parents and that lives up to the values that the sector claims to hold dear.

Xiaoran Xu is co-chair of LSE Power, the London School of Economics’ professional women’s network. She is communications and marketing manager in the LSE’s Department of Health Policy. The views expressed are her own.