The quiet desperation of young fathers at work

In the legal profession, as in other sectors, there has been an increase in levels of attrition as employees reconfigure their responsibilities and prioritise extra-organisational aspects of life over work.

But unlike sectors in which older employees are deciding to retire early, the ‘great resignation’ for law firms seems to have also involved the exit of younger and less experienced professionals.

A growing concern, from which the pandemic has averted our gaze, is the rising number of young fathers seeking greater flexibility. They either leave the profession or, more commonly, move to smaller firms which more readily accept flexible working and the disruptions which engaged parenting brings.

From a sociological perspective, fatherhood and work are at an interesting intersection. Men are expected to engage with traditional breadwinning ideals within their working roles, while societally fathers are subjected to increasing expectations to be involved parents.

This intersection is of particular interest for men working in the legal profession owing to the intense pressure on them to prioritise work over family, to deal with demanding client expectations, and reap rewards which are generally reserved for those who engage with masculine-ideal worker norms and meet performance targets.

For this reason, the legal profession remains one of the most likely organisational settings for men to be stigmatised should they either engage in actions perceived as feminine, such as taking leave to care for children (femininity stigma) or utilise flexible working initiatives (flexibility stigma).

The concern for fathers working within the sector appears to be closely aligned with the ways that these types of stigmas challenge one’s ability to remain professionally successful. Stigmatisation closely correlates with instances of organisational penalties, including reduced earnings, loss of promotion, and/or loss of bonuses.

Fathers, as many sociologists suggest, are between a rock and hard place, in which family is demanding more time and greater engagement. Employers still expect fathers to still perform as if fatherless, blindly investing in their careers and, when they do not conform, punish them.

I recently engaged in an 18-month study to understand what fathers employed in the legal services industry are doing to manage these expectations. My time was split between interviewing 21 legal practitioners, and undertaking participant observation within three large law firms based in the UK.

What I found, ostensibly, was that each of these firms could be understood as a stage upon which a very specific role was performed by fathers. From a sociological discipline, we consider this perspective as dramaturgical, and it is grounded in the early work of one of the last century’s most prominent sociologists, Erving Goffman. Employing Goffman’s concepts, I showed how fathers, as if actors, read the situation and constructed situationally appropriate performances as a means to be received favourably.

In other words, fathers suggested the legal sector could be read like a script which, if they followed it, would help them to appear compliant to industry norms to prioritise work over, and segment work from, family.

In turn this would mean they would situate themselves in a likely situation to receive organisational rewards, including bonuses and promotions. The other side of this coin was one’s fear that, should they not show compliance with those norms, they might be met with organisational penalties.

To claim prioritisation of work over family meant the crafting of a very specific ‘front’ and careful concealment of non-organisation matters. The myriad actions fathers took to fabricate and conceal is beyond the scope of this article. But special mention needs to be made of the ways that fathers utilised informal leave to attend to childcare responsibilities which should have been managed by the utilisation of official leave policies.

For instance, many fathers fabricated client meetings away from the office to allow freedom to attend to childcare responsibilities (drop-off and pick-up from school, dentist appointments, school plays and/or sports days, for instance).

Avoiding the utilisation of leave policies meant fathers avoided the stigmatisation they feared (flexibility/femininity stigma). But it also means a type of bureaucratic absence is created, obscuring the support fathers need to manage work and family to remain professionally successful, while also realising greater engagement in their parental lives.

Most fathers maintained these performances throughout the course of my study. However, at a later date one left the industry altogether and two moved to smaller firms, frustrated by feeling they needed to act in insincere ways to be received favourably.

HR managers, directors and partners might therefore consider it pertinent to review leave initiatives on two fronts. First, most leave initiatives and flexible working arrangements are configured as if they were a resource exclusively for mothers, resulting in fathers not realising they have similar rights (this is especially the case with Shared Parental Leave).

Second, changes may need to be made surrounding expectations for promotion and organisational rewards. This would assure parents that accessing leave initiatives would not have a negative impact upon career prospects, challenging the preconceived assumption that those who do access these initiatives provide less value for the organisation or are less dedicated than those who do not.

The alternative appears to be a continued exodus of fathers from larger firms, and indeed the legal sector. The rest will remain engaged in a type of quiet desperation, pursuing an insincere representation of self and coming to resent their employers as they reflect on lost time with their children.

Dr Martyn Bradley is a lecturer in work organisation and management at the University of Liverpool