AIBU to be concerned maternity package has been cut to pay for shared parental leave?

[SharedParentalLeaveImpacts]

My company has a fairly generous enhanced maternity package. Not as good as the 6 months full pay some civil service friends get, but still above the statutory.

Next year, men will be entitled to the same package if taking Shared Parental Leave. The terms of the policy will change so that beneficiaries would effectively receive about 25% less overall. There is also a cap on the number of times you can take it. I’m unwilling to give any more details as it could be outing (I have name changed).

This won’t affect me personally but I could see this coming when the government legislated for SPL. I know companies don’t have to match maternity packages for men. But our company did a review of competitors and this is what others offer. So they have followed suit.

I can understand why they are doing this as the policy needs to be funded (we employ a lot of men and it could cost a lot).

AIBU to be concerned that women are going to lose out? Not me personally but other younger women? Or should they be grateful to receive above the minimum? Did the government not consider these potential impacts when designing their policy? Is this happening in other companies?

Please note I’m not willing to say what the industry is or give any more details about the specific policy. So will ignore these questions.

Fine, but, in part, the gender pay gap is your fault.

Isn’t maternity leave also about the mother being able to physically recover from pregnancy/Labour/birth as well? I had an EMCS after two days of labour and it took me a good few months to get back to normal physically. There’s no way I could have gone back to work and let DH take over! I had to go back after 7 months for financial reasons and it took me ages to feel human again after this.

My DH and I did SPL. We did a month cross over then he did about 2.5 months by himself. I think OP there is a strong element - as you’ve later acknowledged - of there being a range of individual views and preferences around taking leave, and it’s good if a wider range of preferences can be accommodated. I smiled ruefully when I read your argument that “a lot of men wouldn’t want to or couldn’t cope with” looking after a very young baby. In all honesty I found those early days to be filled with drudgery and monotony and I didn’t cope well with that - I would have not been at all impressed if my DH has refused to take SPL on the basis that he didn’t want to do it or couldn’t cope! In fact I would have been furious...! I also breastfed until beyond my baby’s first birthday.

Just wanted to address the comments about not supporting equality in the workplace if you question the dilution of benefits arising from the implementation of SPL.

SPL is only for the first year of a child’s life (please correct me if I’m wrong about that?). There are 17 more years (at least!) of caring for your child. Primary school years are the most challenging for many families in terms of childcare arrangements. My DH does all the wrap around care for 2 kids while I work full time away from the home. His employment accommodates that. If I needed to, I could arrange for flexible working also as I have a good employer in that regard. That’s actually the really tricky bit of raising a child- caring for them before and after school and during the school holidays. Logistically it can be challenging. So an employer that is able to accomodate flexibility for both male and female carers is truly supporting shared parenting and equality in the workplace. That’s the equality we REALLY need and appreciate as women in the workplace and mothers because it allows us to progress in our careers and still provide family contact during the working week. 1 year of parental leave is fleeting in the life of a child and the career of a woman.

The two are not mutually exclusive, SPL . PL works very well in countries like Sweden. It seems some women in the UK are all for sex discrimination against men as long as it means they can be sat at home for a year.

@bobbletrouble yes I recognise there is a wide range of experiences (including gay couples, adoptive parents) and your points are valid and criticism of my stereotypes very welcome! But there is a lot of truth in what I said even though it would not be palatable for you. A lot of women who carry, grow and then nurture a baby don’t want their partners to look after the baby while they are an infant. And a lot of men don’t want to look after a baby either. I’m just not sure the best way to change this is to provide a financial incentive to encourage behaviour change.

Agree with the need for flexibility in later years for wrap around care. But so often the mother is the default provider of this care. SPL can help set a pattern of childcare being a shared responsibility from the outset.

Maternity/paternity should be equally interchangeable. No reason at all that women should automatically be getting months off work to care for a new baby. The father can do that just as well and it should be a decision for each couple to make without men being financially penalised and women being assumed to take the hit. Women should however be getting individual based sick leave for their own bodies recovery, separate to maternity leave which should be solely for caring for a child.

Men don't have to recover from the pregnancy or birth, or breastfeed. Its not about discriminating against men. Its comparing 2 different things.

Leave for parents who were not pregnant shouldn't impact mothers.

No one is saying they have to head back to the fields the same day they gave birth. 6 months is plenty. You all have been quite spoilt here. But well, with the Tories now firmly in place you can expect such ridiculously long leaves to soon become a thing of the past. Not at all surprised there's so much discrimination against hiring women of childbearing age, tbh.

Thing is, I can totally see how reducing the maternity leave provision is rubbish for those women employed by the company who want to take all of the leave themselves. But then enhancing SPL provision should help women whose partners are employed at your company who want to share the leave. If making SPL more attractive increases take up amongst fathers / men in the company, then you’d like to think this will help women employees too as the workplace becomes more equal and men and women grapple with the same issues. My DH is quite senior at his work (as am I) and found SPL hard, great and thought provoking. He’s a big advocate to his team of work life balance, challenging gender assumptions and sharing caring responsibilities. Hopefully he would have been anyway, but SPL really opened his eyes to some of the issues mothers can face.

@FruitcakeOfHate yes they are not mutually exclusive - it was an illustration of how we need to look at the whole package for parents and that support for all carers (including those with elderly relatives... the responsibility for whom often falls disproportionately on women btw) makes a far greater difference than mat leave to career progress and pay.

I experienced discrimination AFTER I returned to work as a new mum (denied promotion for a job I was doing while a man was promoted with less experience - was told it was because I was a new mum). So I left. I’ve never knowingly been discriminated when I was hired, went for contracts, trained, promoted, while I was pregnant or while on maternity leave.

I also know other people experienced similar discrimination after they returned to work. It’s what can happen once you return to work after maternity leave that stalls your career.

@bobbletrouble very good point about setting a precedent. It’s really about culture change isn’t it? At our school gates my DH says there are equal men picking up as women (I wouldn’t know because I don’t do the school run!)

And bravo for your DH @bobbletrouble we need many more men and women like him in UK leadership roles. Success should be measured on impact, not numbers of hours in the office. I’m lucky to work for a progressive employer and LM

I’m going to disagree with some posters here.

I gave birth, I breastfed, my child needed me during that first year and whilst it’s great that this gives the opportunity for shared parental leave. I know myself and most of my friends as mothers want to be the ones to care for our baby.

Breastfeeding is important and so is bonding with your baby. There is just as much value being at home as there is in the workplace. We don’t want to be forcing woman back to work early before they are ready or even recovered from birth- or make them ‘swap’ with their partners.

I gave birth and breastfed too (extended bf)
These things aren’t mutually exclusive with going to work.
By all means don’t use SPL if you and the baby’s dad don’t want to share care. I’m just making the point because it’s important women know they can give birth, bf and go to work too

@Summerandsparkle there’s a whole spectrum though. Legally the mother who’s given birth only has to take the first two weeks off following the birth. It would have absolutely been far, far too early for me to have gone back to work at that point. I went back when my child was 7 months. I breastfed exclusively for six months, then continued to breastfeed mornings, evenings and nights until beyond my child’s first birthday.

Other parents might decide, where finances allow, say to do SPL where the mother takes ten months of mat leave and the second parent does two months of SPL. Many mothers won’t take off more then nine months for mat leave anyway. I suppose I’m just trying to say that sharing leave doesn’t have to mean the mother rushing back to work before she’s ready.

@MaverickSnoopy I would think your situation and preferences are pretty common. That women actively choose an ‘easier’ family life over family+high flying career. I’m sure more men will also make this choice as society changes. I’m definitely noticing this where I live as the male/female split at our school gates is equal

I agree you can work and breastfeed. I hadn’t read the whole thread or seen any of your comments.

I personally couldn’t pump, total nightmare- never been able to get any milk. Of course it’s all about choice but I think it would be really hard work to ‘do it all’, working, pumping in lunch breaks etc. Too much pressure when your baby is so young and you do lose some of the benefits of breastfeeding. It’s like in America where they have no choice but to go back after a few weeks which is just sad.

I just think there is a huge expectation on women whatever you do. I agree that they absolutely should not reduce maternity pay for parental leave.

I think it would be better to focus on flexible working hours for both parents on return to work. My company does this, there are many parents male and female working 3-4 days a week in more senior roles.

Yes @Summerandsparkle I cannot pump either. It takes ages to get 1 oz from each breast. It’s a faff and I have 2 kids to look after and a demanding job. It ain’t gonna happen if I want to have a decent weekend or get my work done in office hours! There is somewhere in the office to pump if I wanted to. I did consider purchasing the Elvie pump but it’s not cost effective.

So I’m giving up breastfeeding to return to work next month (9 month old baby). It just feels like too much stress to continue and would be difficult to maintain supply/ care for my older child when I get home at night if I need to immediately do a marathon feed with my baby. It isn’t practical for my circumstances. I know women who have tried but not sustained it. I don’t personally know anyone who has succeeded doing it. I know it’s an option, but not everyone can manage it.

I think it would be better to focus on flexible working hours for both parents on return to work. My company does this, there are many parents male and female working 3-4 days a week in more senior roles.

meh - non-parents should also have this flexibility. It's not all about parents. It is about people.
I shared my PL with my DH. He took the 2nd 18 months with our DC2 and it was bloody brilliant. Not in the UK, obvs.

And yes a focus on flexibility is going to make more difference to parents with children

But for women of childbearing age who don’t want children, I appreciate that SPL will lead to less discrimination for them in the workplace/ during hiring processes

So many women on here say that they 'gave up their career' to have children - surely improving SPL is a good thing, as it will make it easier for parents to split the responsibility, and avoid women having to lose their financial independence?

@Screaming Every woman I know who has ‘given up’ their career for a family has done so after having a second child. Nothing to do with maternity leave. More to do with work life balance when at work while caring for 2 kids (because the cost of childcare, they earn less than partner, they want to spend more time with their children etc)

But we should be challenging the assumption that women have to accept being the lower earner. Part of that stems from the assumption that women are less valuable employees because it will always be the woman who goes off on extended mat leave. As pps have said, you get tarnished by that assumption even if you are child free.

As for the woman wanting to spend time with the children - are you saying men don't want to spend time with their children?