Equal Parenting Project: Sharing childcare to drive gender equality in the workplace
Dr Sarah Forbes and Dr Holly Birkett are leading the Equal Parenting Project with the aim of improving the use of family-friendly policies in the UK and encouraging equality in the workplace.
They've undertaken a wide variety of engaged research around working parents, and particularly fathers.
This body of work has included interviews, national surveys and focus groups with new parents to understand how they construct their roles as parents and how they understand and use the policies available to them.
They've also recently conducted four national surveys to understand employees and managers experiences of working from home during COVID-19 and the impact on their future attitudes and intentions regarding flexible working.
Senior lecturers Dr Forbes and Dr Birkett are the first UK academics to look in-depth at the impact of COVID -19 remote working on the future intentions of employees and organisations regarding flexible working. They explore what this might mean for the future of work and gender equality in the workplace.
And they were also the first academics in the UK to systematically look into the reasons for the low take up of SPL and to design interventions for improving take up at both the organisation and government level.
Through the use of rich empirical evidence, the project aims to help break down barriers to all parents taking on childcaring responsibilities
Our research
The Equal Parenting Project has involved extensive engaged research around the use of family-friendly policies in the workplace and gendered attitudes towards child caring.
Project leads Dr Holly Birkett (left) and Dr Sarah Forbes.
Working Dads Employer Awards 2025
The awards encourage employers to think more about how they can better support fathers in the future to aid working families, attract and retain top talent, help close the gender pay gap and promote gender equality in the workplace.
Our resources and publications
In the media
- Most managers believe flexible working helps productivity (The Guardian, 9 January 2023)
- How Working From Home Has Changed Employees (Wall Street Journal, 12 June 2021)
- Are We Likely To Work Only 50% Of The Time In The Office? (Forbes Magazine, 11 May 2021)
- Inside Covid-19’s “lost year” for women at work (New Statesman, 8 March 2021)