To think maternity pay should be better funded?

[iguano88]

I saw this post earlier this week.

We are expecting our first baby. As it stands we won’t be able to comfortably afford a second: finances of maternity leave, childcare, mortgages rates, everything.

Surely people will start to choose to have no kids or just have one, because of the financial barriers. If everyone does this there are going to be huge consequences population wise down the line. If people are employed I am not sure why they are not entitled to better pay while they are on leave.

You could go on long term sick and get full pay for 6 months and half pay for 6 months, why should that be any better than maternity pay? I just don’t understand.

People are often not expecting to become unwell for an extended period of time so don’t save for it I suppose.

True. Begs the question; should only the people who can afford to save for a whole maternity leave be able to have kids? What about one or low income households, or those who want more than one child but are already paying extortionate childcare fees?

Not everyone gets full pay when off sick, many are SSP only

Does your company not offer an enhanced package? In my experience most do fir a set period and then it drops to the rate you've outlined above.

Also getting ill is not a matter of choice, having a baby is a decision

They do, works out I’ll get about 75% of my wage for 6ish months and then SMP for another 9 weeks then nothing.

I don’t know a single person who gets enhanced pay through their work, except those who work for the nhs. I’m not sure it’s a commonplace as people think!

An awful lot of people do not get 6 months full pay if they are sick. Yes you do if you work in the NHS, but most people don't. If I am sick I get ssp only of £109 a week which would be a quarter of my normal pay.

Many women return to work after 6 months because they need to for financial reasons. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s a luxury to take off a year. It shouldn’t be up to the government to provide a further subsidy.

Yes, huge costs to society if children don’t have responsive parenting in a calm home in their first months of life. It should be affordable for everyone to have children, not just those who’ve fallen on the right side of the massively growing inequality since 2010 or had help with a deposit.

Most people don’t get anything like that if they are off sick. And having a child is a choice. Being sick isn’t. I think government maternity pay and conditions are pretty generous. And a company is paying you 75% of your pay for six months is really good. Mine was only for six weeks.

As a percentage increase then, MA is going up by 7% and MP’s salaries by 5.5%.

Have you only just noticed! It's been this way for decades.

I had ds 15 years ago. There was no way that I could afford a second even then. Most of my friends have one or two. My only relative who has three, her husband is in the American military so their early married life, they were provided with housing. They get help with college fees.

The U.K. govt wants women working, contributing to GDP and paying tax. Not producing too many children. Our birth rate is less than 1.6 per woman. Replacement rate is 2.1. As the baby boomers die off, without immigration, population will fall.

My employer pays full sick pay for 5 days, then SSP. We only get SMP for pregnancy. I haven’t done the maths, but I’m pretty sure I would be paid more for 6 months maternity leave than 6 months on the sick.

Personally, I would be happy with more help with childcare. I think companies could be doing more in that area.

Just a quick check but looks like the civil service, most large banks/building societies and all the supermarkets offer at least 6 months full pay. Over the last 5-10 years it has become a lot more common

Must be the people we know and the sectors they work in. I honestly don't know anyone who DOESNT get enhanced mat pay.

I think that's decent tbh.

I think a % of salary would be better.

Whilst I understand in theory women on higher wages have more capacity to save for maternity the drop between wages and stat pay is obviously larger the more you're on and therefore difficult to maintain outgoings whilst you're off, especially if you're not entitled to any further help.

It makes it easier for someone part time earning £900 a month to take the drop in salary for the full payment period than someone on £2500 per month

Everyone should be on an even playing field on maternity but it doesn't seem to be the case atm

Also OP, your maternity package is very good. I got statutory minimum then when I returned to work, I was fired (made redundant) first morning back. It took me a year to force them to tribunal, when they begrudgingly paid out.
I was lucky that I had legal insurance and could pay a legal team. Many women don't and just have to suck it up.

No, it should be up to employers.

Im a slightly higher than average earner (£50kish) and only got 13 weeks at 90% pay and then my wages dropped down to SMP.
I also couldn’t bank holidays to tack on to my leave or anything like that.

My partner works for the same employer and was able to take 4 weeks maternity leave on full pay, plus 4 weeks of holiday, and then a further 4 weeks on half pay (which they divided over his entire leave so we were actually barely any worse off)

We work for the same organisation which makes the whole thing more laughable!

Employers can add to the government maternity pay as well. We do 4 months full pay for maternity and 2 months for paternity. As we’re remote, we also do flexible working and babies often attend meetings, so the end of ‘leave’ doesn’t signify full time childcare unless parents feel that suits them best. We haven’t had anyone from our small business adopt yet, but if they did we’d probably extend to 1y full pay for partner in maternity role (as this is the length of time required to be off) and 6 months for partner in paternity role (due to differing issues).

I do think it could be better and I equally think more employers could do more too. I think it needs to be a joint effort between government and employers to make parents lives better. At the moment, it often falls to the women to take time off over childcare issues or when children are sick, these things need looking at too and policies should be improved to make it more feasible for both parents. It’s also important that shared parental leave isn’t often looked at - employers can agree to pay the same length full pay whether it’s shared or not. I think the provisions for shared parental leave should also be relooked at and effort made to find out why the uptake is low.

Exactly.

Especially if the one giving birth is the higher earner. Which can often be the case in same sex relationships, or just where the female is the higher earner in heterosexual relationships.

It should definitely be a proportion of what you earn, given that higher earners contribute more to society in the way of taxes.

Crazy that you don’t think that all mothers should get a year though; I’d be pretty paused off that the physical toll of giving birth is ignored and that an adoptive dad gets longer than a birth mum? Doesn’t that seem off to you?

'As the baby boomers die off, without immigration, population will fall.'

I don't think so - you realise that when the 'hated' baby boomers dies off (thanks for the support - I paid for your education and that of your children) there will be gen x causing you the same kind of problems.

“Slightly higher than average earner”? You’re 50% higher than the average earner!