About half of fathers (47%) spend only 1-2 hours and a quarter of them 2-3 hours of quality time with their children on a weekday – attending programs, playing or studying together, according to a survey of fathers working at Yettel[1]. 15% of respondents have less than an hour for such activities. They tend to have more time at the weekend: almost 85% of them can spend at least three hours with their children (a third can spend more than 8 hours). Three-quarters of fathers feel that the time they spend with their children is not enough. Most people believe that Father’s Day is worth celebrating because it is important to raise awareness of the role of fathers in the family. Almost 40% of respondents regularly mark the day.
“It is important that fathers spend as much quality time as possible with their children. Fathers communicate, care and play in a different way, which contributes to the child’s emotional stability and intelligence. It is also a way of experiencing fatherhood and being with a child, and it is necessary to facilitate the biological-psychological process of bonding. Finally, it also stabilises the relationship between the parents, because a mother can be a real mother if she has help, so paternity leave also supports mothers”, says László Léder, psychologist and founder of the Fathers’ Academy.
Paternity leave benefits both the family and the workplace
These findings were confirmed by respondents to the mobile operator’s survey. Paternal leave is seen as important for three equally important reasons: fathers can spend more time with the family, infants benefit from fathers’ presence and fathers can help their partners more. “There are international best practices. In Western Europe, more and more employers are giving some kind of a leave to young fathers who tend to be more loyal to such workplaces. Iceland introduced a one-month state paternity leave in 2000, after which sick leave was reduced, divorce rates fell and the number of births increased”, adds László Léder.
Yettel was one of the first companies in Hungary to introduce extended paternity leave in 2021, before the relevant legislation came into force, giving 4 weeks’ leave to employees whose partners take maternity leave to have children. This is double the 10 days allowed by law, and instead of receiving 40% of their salary, fathers can take leave with full pay. According to the operator, employees are keen to take advantage of this opportunity. By April this year, more than 100 people had taken the extra leave, giving them around 15,000 extra hours with their children. Fathers take an average of 16 consecutive days off work, two-thirds of them in the first three months after the birth of a child. Yettel colleagues take paternity leave at an average age of 35. This opportunity is part of a wide range of benefits offered by the mobile operator, including the solidarity fund, which supports colleagues who find themselves in a difficult financial situation due to unexpected life circumstances, or the “You can count on us” programme, which provides support for everyday problems and difficult life situations and allows colleagues to seek help from professionals in case of legal, health, financial or even psychological and personal problems.
To mark Fathers’ Day this year, Yettel offered fathers with children under 18 a reduced working day so they could spend more quality time with their children. As part of a drawing competition, the operator asked the children of fathers who work for Yettel to draw a picture of what they think their dad does in the office and how they imagine his job. The mobile operator will help implement the joint programs that the winners have imagined. A short video about the competition is available at the following link: https://youtu.be/qy0c-fisOeA
[1] The survey was conducted between 31 May and 7 June 2024 on a sample of more than 100 fathers with children under 18 employed by Yettel.