Blog: Striving for Inclusivity in a Post-Covid World
An interview with Julia Melin, assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior group at the Tuck School of Business.
BY T’25s ZOE KASLOW, RYANN MIGUEL, NATALYA SUBBOTINA, AND OLIVIA THURSTON
During the pandemic, working parents scrambled to navigate unprecedented chaos. Hybrid and remote work became more widely permissible, but caregiving responsibilities necessitated even greater prioritization as schools and daycares shuttered. These turbulent times had a surprising impact on previously held gender norms. Relevant findings from Tuck Assistant Professor Julia Melin were summarized here last fall. In short, some penalties were rendered obsolete as working parenthood gained new visibility, especially among senior leaders. But, in a more recent interview with fellows from the Tuck Initiative on Workplace Inclusion, Melin shared early findings from ongoing research suggesting that, while upended during the pandemic, stigmatization is back on the rise. As more working parents return to full-time employment and companies navigate a time of continued political uncertainty, three takeaways remain critical.
First, parents attempting career reentry face obstacles, regardless of gender. However, these obstacles can be exacerbated for fathers. Before the pandemic, when fathers sought to reenter the workforce after lengthy full-time parenting breaks, they were less likely to be interviewed or hired than equally qualified mothers. Fathers with extended career breaks were penalized to an even greater extent by employers when they used career re-entry assistance, such as a returnship program, compared to when they did not. These penalties disappeared during the height of the pandemic but post-pandemic, they have reemerged.
Second, these penalties can be traced to the concept of ideal worker norms—the expectation that employees prioritize work above all else. Ideal worker norms can be especially inflexible for fathers, since men are stereotypically cast as breadwinners rather than caregivers. Additionally, societal stereotypes about men mean that fathers exhibiting help-seeking behaviors (like participating in a returnship program) may be perceived as weak or lacking independence. Both seeking help and the prioritization of family, on the other hand, aligns with prescriptive, or acceptable, gender expectations of women, so mothers who leave work for full-time parenting and who leverage returnship programs tend to face less backlash. As a result, women are more likely to take full-time career breaks to shoulder the needs of growing families, which continues to constrain women’s full labor force participation. If companies seek to enable women’s full labor force participation, it is imperative that concerted organizational and social actions are taken to support and encourage men’s engagement in caregiving responsibilities.
Finally, policies alone are insufficient, even when they are a move in a more inclusive direction. When new policies are put in place, the norms about how they are used often vary from team to team. And these norms can be sticky and resistant to change. Melin explained that even within the same organization, teams are likely to have unique cultures and interpersonal dynamics, making policies hard to effectuate in a standardized way. Therefore, it is particularly important to gather buy-in from individual managers who can be held accountable for implementing these policies and to highlight positive examples of working parents at all levels in an organization.
Melin was careful to clarify that necessary policy changes will be dependent on a company’s size, maturity, and unique culture. This general framework can serve as a starting point for leaders and managers:
- Listen to self-identified advocates at your company to ensure policies are inclusive.
Employee-led resource groups (ERGs) are intended to serve as safe spaces for working parents to build community. To underscore the importance of these groups, companies should ensure representatives from ERGs are involved in policy-making processes. Model companies like Google highlight ERGs as key stakeholder groups in efforts to reflect and embrace diversity as well as improve work satisfaction. - Set clear guidelines to reduce ambiguity and protect employees who utilize assistance.
When asked what can be done to disrupt ideal worker norms, Melin provided an example for how to incentivize fathers to take paternity leave. One concern is that fathers on leave are more likely to continue working, prefer a shorter leave, or use leave time for human capital development activities. Melin shared an anecdote of a company that asked all employees to return their equipment (e.g. laptops) while on leave to prevent this from happening in a more tangible way. - Incorporate regular audits as part of the implementation plan.
Many companies today are using pulse surveys to routinely assess progress (e.g. utilization rate for paternity leave). Leaders may also need to check-in with managers to identify and alleviate barriers.
In addition to this general framework, leaders and managers need to understand why companies should focus on reshaping the challenges and norms of working parenthood. Melin explained that for companies to remain competitive, they should implement policies and norms that enable them to successfully attract and retain new workers. If an employee’s lifestyle is not consistent with the norms of the company, the employee will leave. Talent is expensive, and it will be advantageous and cost effective for firms to give employees good benefits, incentivize behaviors that reflect company values and involve leaders and managers in this process. As remote and hybrid work options become more common and parenthood gains greater visibility, it is important to consider how inclusivity for parents can shape the future of work. Additionally, with birth rates declining significantly in the U.S. and around the world, creating a culture that values, supports, and normalizes shared caregiving responsibilities for both men and women will be vital for building a sustainable and inclusive workforce.
As we look forward to the next phase of the evolution of norms around caregiving post-pandemic, Melin suggests there is some compromise where fathers can engage in more caregiving but continue to have the façade of the ideal worker. We may see a trend emerge specifically with fathers in senior positions in hybrid or remote jobs, where more caregiving is happening, but it is not advertised directly as caregiving. This trend is promising, because fathers in senior positions can lead by example in these more visible leadership roles. However, the downside is that this privilege will unlikely be extended to all workers regardless of their status at work. While this shift may not change norms around caregiving in the short-term, it could influence caregiving norms to be more inclusive for men in the long-term. We should remember that significant strides have been made in gender equality in the workplace and acknowledge the focus to offer more opportunities for parenthood and work to become increasingly more compatible.
Sources
- “American Community Survey (ACS).” U.S. Census Bureau, United States Government, www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs.
- Barroso, Amanda, and Gretchen Livingston. “A Rising Share of Working Parents in the U.S. Say It’s Been Difficult to Handle Child Care during the Pandemic.” Pew Research Center, 26 Jan. 2021, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/01/26/a-rising-share-of-working-parents-in-the-u-s-say-its-been-difficult-to-handle-child-care-during-the-pandemic/.
- Melin, J. L. (2024). The Help-Seeking Paradox: Gender and the Consequences of Using Career Reentry Assistance. Social Psychology Quarterly, 87(2), 152-174. https://doi.org/10.1177/01902725231180804
- Parks-Stamm, Elizabeth J., and Derek T. Tharp. “But What Did They Do on Leave? Differing Evaluations of Men and Women’s Completion of Work Tasks on Parental Leave.” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, first published 19 Dec. 2022, doi:10.1111/joop.12421.
- Tharp, Derek T., and Elizabeth J. Parks-Stamm. “Gender Differences in the Intended Use of Parental Leave: Implications for Human Capital Development.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues, published online 22 Oct. 2020, Springer, doi:10.1007/s10834-020-09722-8.
