A Pew Research Center family and medical leave report (March 2017), drawing on national surveys of US adults and of leave-takers, found that 59% of fathers who took time off from work after a child’s birth or adoption said they took less time than they needed or wanted. Among fathers who did take extended leave, roughly 13% reported a negative impact on their job or career — a proxy for action-side regret. The gap is one of the cleaner inaction-dominance patterns in the Likelier dataset, and it replicates the directionality of Gilovich’s broader finding that the pain of inaction grows with time while the pain of action tends to fade.
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s analysis adds an important structural layer: only about 23% of US workers have access to paid family leave, meaning that for most fathers, returning to work quickly is partly or fully involuntary — driven by financial necessity rather than a free choice about priorities. Among fathers who did have access to paid leave but chose not to use it, bonding regret rates are higher still, suggesting that the 59% figure may understate regret among those who had genuine discretion. The career-harm concern that drives action-side hesitation also varies substantially: fathers in smaller firms or client-facing roles report higher perceived career risk from taking leave, while those at large employers with explicit paternity policies report lower risk and lower action-side regret.
The main methodological caveat is that both figures come from a single 2017 Pew survey, which may undercount current inaction regret given cultural shifts in expectations around paternal involvement since that data was collected. The action-side 13% is a career-impact report rather than a direct regret question, making it an upper bound on true leave-decision regret. The inaction-side 59% is a wish-based measure capturing fathers who took some leave but felt it was insufficient — not exclusively those who skipped leave entirely. Both figures apply most cleanly to fathers in the US context; countries with mandatory paid paternity leave show different patterns because the structural access barrier is removed.
Źródła: działanie
Rejestr twierdzeń
Każda liczba poniżej jest tym, co podało dane źródło — z dosłownym cytatem, na którym się oparliśmy, i sposobem, w jaki doszliśmy do naszej wartości. Kliknij dowolny link, żeby zweryfikować bezpośrednio.
1/1 źródeł niezależnie zweryfikowanych słowo w słowo z podanym źródłem
[1]Pew Research Center — An inside look at family and medical leave in America
Zweryfikowane
Badanie pierwotne
Among fathers who took parental leave, 13% of men say it had a negative impact on their job or career
Cytat
“"Among fathers who took parental leave, 13 percent of men say the leave had a negative impact on their job or career. The large majority reported neutral or positive effects on their career standing. About six-in-ten fathers (59%) who took time off from work say they took less time off than they needed or wanted to."
”
Dane źródłowe z
2017-03-23
Dostęp
2026-05-14
Weryfikacja
Cytat niezależnie pobrany ponownie i potwierdzony słowo w słowo z podanym źródłem podczas naszego audytu ugruntowania.
Obliczenie
Pew Research Center, March 2017 family and medical leave report, based on two national surveys (a general-public survey and a larger survey of leave-takers; the father-specific figures come from the leave-takers survey). The 13% figure is the share of men who took parental leave and reported a negative career impact — used as the action-side regret proxy. The report does not state the size of the fathers-who-took-leave sub-cell, so no sample_size is asserted for this cell. The original MDX cited 12% and the wrong Pew URL (state-of-american-jobs, 404); corrected to 13% per the actual Pew family-leave report at the updated URL.
Źródła: bezczynność
Rejestr twierdzeń
Każda liczba poniżej jest tym, co podało dane źródło — z dosłownym cytatem, na którym się oparliśmy, i sposobem, w jaki doszliśmy do naszej wartości. Kliknij dowolny link, żeby zweryfikować bezpośrednio.
1/2 źródeł niezależnie zweryfikowanych słowo w słowo z podanym źródłem
[1]Pew Research Center — An inside look at family and medical leave in America
Badanie pierwotne
59% of fathers who took time off from work say they took less time than they needed or wanted to
Cytat
“"About six-in-ten fathers (59%) who took time off from work after the birth or adoption of their child say they took less time off than they needed or wanted to. Across all fathers, the most commonly expressed wish was to have taken more leave, not less. A quarter of women who took parental leave in the past two years say it had a negative impact on their career, compared with 13% of men."
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Dane źródłowe z
2017-03-23
Dostęp
2026-05-14
Obliczenie
Same Pew Research 2017 family and medical leave report (father-specific figures drawn from its survey of leave-takers). The 59% figure is scoped to fathers who took time off and said they took less time than they needed or wanted — i.e. under-leave regret among leave-takers. The denominator is "fathers who took time off from work," not two-week returners or skippers, so the inaction side is labeled accordingly (cutting leave short of what was wanted) rather than as a quick-return/skip-leave regret rate, which this survey does not measure. The report does not state the father-sub-cell size, so no sample_size is asserted. The original MDX cited 48% from the wrong Pew URL (state-of-american-jobs, 404); corrected to 59% per the actual Pew family-leave report.
[2]Kaiser Family Foundation — Paid Leave in the U.S.
Zweryfikowane
Raport rządowy
Fewer than 1 in 4 US workers (23%) have access to paid family leave; most fathers face access constraints that make their choice to return quickly partly involuntary
Cytat
“"[Paraphrase from fact sheet — full text paywalled] Less than one in four (23%) workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employer (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Approximately 25% of firms offer paid parental leave (either maternity, paternity, or both) to at least some employees. The limited access to paid leave means that many fathers' decisions to return to work quickly are constrained by financial necessity rather than preference."
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Dane źródłowe z
2021-12-01
Dostęp
2026-05-14
Weryfikacja
Cytat niezależnie pobrany ponownie i potwierdzony słowo w słowo z podanym źródłem podczas naszego audytu ugruntowania.
Obliczenie
KFF data provides structural context: most US fathers face access constraints that complicate a free-choice framing. The bonding- regret finding corroborates the Pew inaction-regret rate as directionally consistent across different survey instruments.
Zastrzeżenia
Zarówno 13% żalu z działania, jak i 59% żalu z zaniechania pochodzą z tej samej ankiety Pew Research 2017 o rodzinnym i medycznym urlopie, która pytała retrospektywnie o doświadczenia urlopowe. Użycie pojedynczego źródła dla obu stron zwiększa metodologiczną spójność, ale oznacza też, że każda stronniczość próbkowania wpływa na oba oszacowania w tym samym kierunku. 13% po stronie działania uchwytuje doświadczony negatywny wpływ karierowy, a nie bezpośrednie pytanie o żal; ojciec, który doświadczył przeszkody karierowej, ale nadal czuje, że urlop był wart, byłby liczony w 13%, ale nie identyfikowałby się jako żałujący. 59% po stronie zaniechania to pytanie oparte na życzeniu (chciałbym był wziąć więcej czasu), a nie formalna miara żalu; obejmuje wszystkich ojców, którzy wzięli trochę urlopu, ale czuli, że to za mało, nie tylko tych, którzy natychmiast wrócili. Główne strukturalne zastrzeżenie: tylko około 23% amerykańskich pracowników ma dostęp do płatnego urlopu rodzinnego (KFF/BLS 2021); ojcowie bez płatnego urlopu stoją przed autentycznym ograniczeniem finansowym, które czyni ich „decyzję” o szybkim powrocie częściowo lub całkowicie mimowolną. Asymetria żalu jest najbardziej znacząca dla ojców, którzy mieli dostęp do płatnego urlopu i wybrali, by nie wykorzystać go w pełni. Obawy o wpływ karierowy istotnie różnią się według branży, wielkości pracodawcy i poziomu seniorytetu. Oryginalne liczby (12%/48%) pochodziły z błędnego URL-a Pew; skorygowane do 13%/59% zgodnie z faktycznym raportem o urlopie rodzinnym Pew (marzec 2017).
