Balancing work and family is still seen as a problem for women and mothers.
But employers should arm themselves: For fathers, family-friendliness is now a decisive criterion for choosing or changing jobs.
Companies that do not (want to) understand this and do not support fathers adequately in the balancing act between work and career are at risk of falling behind in times of a shortage of skilled workers.
Katja Gelinsky
Business correspondent in Berlin
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According to a Prognos study on the critical question "How father-friendly is the German economy?"
After all, 17 percent of fathers think about such a step “often” and another 23 percent “sometimes” for family reasons.
Unsurprisingly, younger fathers toy with the idea of looking for a new job for family reasons more often than older ones.
But the number of children also plays a role in the willingness to change.
Father-friendliness benefits everyone
The study, for which management and HR managers as well as working fathers of underage children were interviewed, is available to the FAZ in advance.
The client is the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs.
"Those who do not take care of their fathers' wishes run the risk of losing them," warns Minister Lisa Paus (Greens).
Everyone benefits from a father-friendly personnel policy: the mother, who is relieved with the child, the partnership because tasks are shared at home, the children, who have more time with their fathers - and the economy, "because mothers can work more if Fathers take on more responsibility in the family”.
According to the study, companies currently overestimate their father-friendliness.
Offers are there.
"However, father-friendliness in the company is only effective if personnel measures are embedded in a father-conscious corporate culture and the concerns of fathers in terms of compatibility are addressed and taken seriously." The fathers surveyed almost unanimously (93 percent) want more flexibility, at what times and from where they work from.
Not even half (44 percent) are satisfied with the current working time regulations - although more than 60 percent confirm that there are flexible working time models in their company.
40 percent of the fathers surveyed would like to reduce their contractual workload, 46 percent would like less overtime.
When asked in the company to what extent the needs of employees with children are taken into account, the answers are sometimes very different, depending on whether company representatives or fathers express themselves.
63 percent of the companies gave themselves the grade "very father-friendly" and another 31 percent the grade "partially father-friendly".
No company classified itself as father-unfriendly.
