To wonder if enhanced maternity benefits actually work against women?

[people]

I work in the public sector in an area staffed almost entirely by women. In this financial year we have had 4 women (from a staff of 24) go on maternity leave, meaning for a large part on the year we have been paying double salaries for those roles, while cover was employed.

This has meant that our department has gone into deficit and that we will be put on special measures for our financial audit for the next 3 years. A right pain in the neck and I seriously think that my boss would think twice about employing so many women if she had a choice. If we were a private company we would have gone bust.

In other industries, where there is more competition for jobs from men, it must be easy to find a "reason" to employ the man rather than a woman of child bearing age. I'd like to think I'd be professional and fair,but if I were in that position and faced with a choice between 2 equally qualified candidates I'd probably choose the man. (I know there are reasons a man can need extended leave, but in practice it is usually women)

I actually think that people has dared to say out loud the unsayable and probably sadly true despite being illegal.

As for paying people who are off for a year it is possible when combining mat leave with annual leave - they may not get mat pay for a full year but do get paid for a full year.

Im in the NHS and get 8 weeks full pay, 18 weeks half pay then just SMP. My team doesn't employ cover until after 6 months when SMP is paid that can be clawed back. So the rest of the team work their arses off. I'm very very glad that I have the opportunity to spend the first year with my baby but not lose any benefits or end up at a career disadvantage.

Yes, company can't claim back enhanced benefits, but I am struggling to understand why an organisation would decide to offer enhanced maternity pay without any thought as to how they might pay for it.

As I said above, my organisation budgets to allow for a certain amount of maternity pay, which is put back into the relevant departmental budgets when women take maternity leave. I am that a company would blame a particular department for implementing policies that are decided centrally. What are departments supposed to do? Instruct employees that no more babies are allowed this year? Personally, I am struggling to believe this.

People I know what you mean. Most central Govt departments offer six months on full pay, then three months on statutory, but there are a few who have gone to nine months on full pay. Then, because annual leave and Bank Holidays are also accrued, it's possible to take almost a further three months on full pay... Not all departments organise their finances to allow teams to meet maternity (and sick and other leave) costs centrally.

I ddn't get from your OP that you were suggesting that this means we should wind back the clock in terms of maternity (and adoption) leave. But I think surely we should be looking at the Scandinavian model of shared parental leave.

I'm just finishing my second period of leave, and what I've noticed both times is the impact on my relationship with DH: we go from having a relationship where we both work full-time and share pretty much the household and childcare responsibilities, to one where I'm a SAHM doing most of the household and children stuff, and he works and doesn't. Then when I go back to work we have to go through a period of re-adjustment. I feel so lucky to have had so long off, but there is definitely a hidden cost.

As someone hurtling towards my mid thirties I feel very discriminated against in my industry because of the number of woman having children. I do feel that my employment prospects are affected by my 'right' to go off for a year (9 months with some form of financial support) at the drop of a hat.

I'm not sure that cutting back on mat. pay is the best solution but we need to start addressing this issue because I truly believe it is affecting the employment prospects of many thirty something year old women.

I don't understand why your company offers enhanced pay and then "slapped you on the wrists" because of their own maternity policy.

why offer an enhanced maternity package if you don't want to attract female employees - enhanced benefits are there to retain good staff - so I would imagine that companies offering such packages must actually value the imput of their female employees - else offer smp?

and yabu - I was in private sector and got 6 mths full pay then 3 mths smp, without it I would have really struggled financially to be off 9 mths - and it would have probably meant I wouldn't have bf for as long as I have (14mths)

Lurker I do agree with you but in fact I suspect that there is a hidden discrimination which goes on longer.

In my case my employer offered generous maternity pay (I think around the 9 months full pay). I didnt take it for many reasons. The problem was that I suspect that there was an assumption that I had and therefore I 'owed' the company in some way (an old fashioned and misogynistic department within a forward thinking company). IMO this did hold back my career.

Families I completely agree that we should adopt the Scandi model of shared parental leave. Not only would it be better at hiring time if employers didn't see women as the people likely to take extended time off and cost the company money, but I think it would also have longer term effects. If, for example, for the first year of the baby's life, each parent had taken off 6 months, later when both are working and the child is sick, I would have thought it more likely that time off to deal with that would also be more equal as childcare is not seen as the woman's remit (and possibly more likely that the child would call for daddy as much as mummy when he/she is ill or wakes up in the night or whatever).

Yy to a more scandanavian model with our parental leave, I also like the scandanavian model of both parents working flexitime/parttime to share childcare. I think this could have a huge positive effect on society.

The point is the current system is not equitable.

Is it really reasonable to expect a small business to treat a male and female who may have a child equally? I don't believe it is. The associated costs are such that parity just isn't going to happen.

The whole system ( And attitude) needs to change in this country.

Morals/ethics/feminism aside it's lala land.

The change will only happen at a legislative level. True equality would require maternal and paternal rights to be the same. I suspect that won't happen any time soon.

Not the case in every organisation, but in the public sector you sometimes find that the departments with the best maternity leave arrangements have relatively small numbers of women so during pay negotiations the improvements have been offered as a way of giving something to staff that doesn't actually cost the department very much.

Not sure I've explained that well! Trying to say that enhanced maternity benefits aren't necessarily about trying to encourage women to work somewhere

YANBU... I know someone personally who avoids recruiting younger women precisely because he wants to avoid the inconvenience of lengthy maternity-related absences, having to find cover etc. He would never admit this publicly and can always find legitimate reasons not to recruit a particular woman that have nothing to do with gender. But it's definitely a factor in his decision-making. I'd like to think he was in the minority but I doubt very much that he is.

Unfortunately some of the policies put in place that are designed to protect women and their jobs can make things more difficult in a way :(

I'm a bit nervous about looking for a job when I finish college this year because I am a woman of child bearing age hoping to go into a male-dominated area of work that would be reasonably 'high risk' for a pregnant woman.

I don't want employers to have any reasons not to hire me but short of saying 'don't worry, I'm not planning on having any more kids' in my interview I'm not sure how I can be sure that they won't see my age and gender as a bit of a 'risk', especially if it's a small company!

I work in public sector (local council) and am currently on maternity leave. We get 13 weeks full pay then smp. Of we don't go back for at least 3 months after then some needs to be paid back.

I work in the public sector in an area staffed almost entirely by women. In this financial year we have had 4 women (from a staff of 24) go on maternity leave, meaning for a large part on the year we have been paying double salaries for those roles, while cover was employed.

I think they do, there is no way a small 3-4 person company can afford 1 pregnant woman (and most companies in the Uk are this size). so they increasingly will only give temp contracts.