“Mirvac obviously has a fantastic shared parental leave policy but, much more importantly, I was encouraged to take it, rather than it just being a policy that’s there but frowned upon if you actually use it,” he said.

“The fact that I not only had a direct line manager who was actively encouraging me to take it but also that other colleagues were doing the same thing and actually taking up the leave, made me much more encouraged and confident.”

Mirvac group general manager of human resources Ben Morris said men accounted for half the employees taking parental leave at the company. He attributed this to a broader culture of flexibility, including for the two in three employees who don’t have any childcare responsibility.

“Our objective was to mainstream flexibility – it’s not just about working mums, and it’s not just about families either – because if you don’t do that there’s still going to be bias or judgment or some form of negativity when people take parental leave,” he said.

“In our construction workforce, it’s really transformed the ability of, particularly, dads in quite a blokey culture to now be able to have a conversation with their teams about their need to access flexibility as well.”

Mirvac is one of a number of large companies offering generous parental leave for both men and women, and structuring it in such a way that men actually take it.

Workplace Gender Equality Agency director Mary Wooldridge said men taking parental leave benefited not only individual families, but also their employers and wider society.

“The research shows that men being more actively involved in childcare increases their wellbeing and happiness,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“It also shows that when men take parental leave, they’re more likely to participate in childcare on an ongoing basis and have a more equitable division of unpaid work at home, which is very positive to both them and their relationship with their children, and also enables women to have greater choices in terms of returning to work.

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“From an organisational perspective, it’s shown to increase job satisfaction and productivity and loyalty for the company, and we think it works more well more broadly for the economy because it facilitates greater economic participation of women.”

The agency, which collects figures from medium and large companies in the private sector, says 103,000 women and 12,000 men took employer-funded primary carer’s leave for an average of about 11 weeks in the year to March 2021. That meant men accounted for 12 per cent of people taking primary carer’s leave, about double the 6.5 per cent of the year before.

Meanwhile, 1500 women and 34,000 men took employer-funded secondary carer’s leave for an average of about two and a half weeks.

Many companies – including KPMG, Deloitte, Diageo, Lion, Medibank, Aurecon, L’Oreal Australia, and Tabcorp – have removed distinctions between primary and secondary carers to allow equal access to both parents. Ms Wooldridge said this was best practice, along with paying superannuation on parental leave, and granting access from a new employee’s first day to remove barriers to job mobility.

Male managers are more likely to take parental leave than the rank and file, which Ms Wooldridge said was positive because they could set an example and influence corporate culture.

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