Almost two thirds of Scottish dads struggling with work life balance

Sixty per cent of working dads in Scotland are struggling to balance work and family life, according to the latest figures from Fathers Network Scotland.

In the annual survey by the site, extra hours and travel distance from home are cited as the biggest reasons for this imbalance.

The poll also shows how attitudes towards parenting have changed concerning dads with more than a half of fathers wanting to change the way they parent in the future and the number of dads spending more than 25 hours a week with their children increasing by eight per cent.

“Priorities have changed and I don’t think my line manager fully appreciates or understands that especially being male,” said one respondent. “It’s expected by them that my wife deals with everything to do with my son to let me know, which I don’t agree with.”

Another said, “Recently starting a new role it’s been difficult to have conversations about expectations when it comes to work/life balance and also while in a probationary period I feel I have to work harder.”

94% of the dads surveyed were in work, while there are over 400,000 fathers in Scotland with dependent children.

However, almost a third of the fathers spoken to said the relationship with their co-parent had been negatively affected. Twenty-three per cent of those explained this was because of their work.

Access to hybrid and flexible working seems to be one of the keys to improving working dads’ lives.

“The pandemic was when I became a father,” said one respondent. “I feared sharing my father’s guilt of being (necessarily) absent due to work. The pandemic seems to have given me a gift of time at the beginning and hybrid working if we can maintain it [is] a real tool to balance things better.”

Read more:

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