to be completely hacked off about British maternity leave?

[lilyelodie]

I am the main earner in the family and am currently pregnant with dc3. The company i work for offers only statutory maternity leave, so we are going to really struggle financially to enable me to have 6 months off (I flatly refuse to have any less than that, as i only had 12 weeks with DS1 and really felt i missed out as a result) - the staff at the nursery my kids are at (state funded as well as private contributions) get 9 months on full pay, and various other people i know in the public sector get at least 6 months on full pay. Does that not mean that the money i pay in taxes contributes to paying other people (much better) maternity leave but not my own?! And that we are then taxed on maternity pay makes the whole thing seem like an utter farce. I am not disrespecting the work that other people do at all, and i do recognise that often (but by no means always) people in the public sector get lower slaries, but surely this dispartiy in what people are offered as maternity leave is just plain wrong and the government should actually address it properly?
...don't even get me started on other countries who actually respect people's right to have kids and support them financially to have proper time off with them!

But you notice that we don't live there now. I wouldn't want to raise children there as the working culture is so child-unfriendly.

That's one of many reasons I won't live there or bring up children there, Tittle.

The other is that people so often define themselves and others by their job. I find that pathetic.

I have a good friend in the States and am shocked by their working practices.

She gets 10 days annual leave per year, they have fewer bank holidays than us, no "boxing day", 2 weeks maternity leave (maybe a bit longer depending on how long they have been at the company) and there is no such thing as paternity leave.

It seems so....backward somehow.

Having lived in the USA prior to living in England I think that British maternity leave is fantastic. Over there (in my state anyway) it is 4-6 weeks unpaid if you want to hang onto your job and health insurance. The employers over there would be shocked at the idea of actually having to pay someone who wasn't at work. How are you supposed to run a business like that they would say?

I think Britain rules for having babies! Even dads can take some time off.

btw 'extra' maternity pay is funded by the employer, not the state. So your taxes have nothing to do with it

Yes we are very lucky compared to the US. Cannot get over how backwards the US is when it comes to employees' rights!

Hmm maybe someone should whisper into Mr Obama's ear that doing something about it would secure a heck of a lot of voters

But not so lucky compared to Scandinavia.
In Norway the norm is either 10 months on 100% salary, or 12 months on 80% salary.

The moment your child is born you apply for a nursery place 10-12 months later, so that you have it ready for when you return to work. Nursery places are state subsidised so you pay just around £240 per month full time.
Set working hours with a 35 hour week: 9-4. Nurseries open at 8 and closes at 5. Plenty of time with family and kids and friends for dinner after work on a weekday.

But it could be worse. Here in NZ we get 14 weeks maternity leave - just recently went up from 12 weeks. Till about 5 years ago there was none. You get 0 weeks on full pay as you get a maximum of 300 and something dollars - about 150 pounds.

I started my maternity pay at about 32 weeks so it was basically all over by the time my dd was about 6 weeks old. Luckily I don't have to go back (I hope)

Oh and there's no Child Benefit here either.

(Apart from all that it's a great place though!)

Enough already with the US bashing. I have worked in both places and my experience that although in theory the maternity pay is better in the uk, the reality of my working day was/is much better in the usa. I work 3/4 time and had no problem getting a job doing this in the USA and didn't have to force anyone to consider this or take my request seriously. I also know many working mother who easily and happily do the same. However, in the UK I was constantly belittled and ridiculed for my part time requests. In addition, the reality of my day to day existence is so much easier here in the USA that I don't need all the extra vacation and time off to live a comfortable and easy life. In fact, in the UK, I ended up working half time instead of 3/4 because I just couldn't manage all my personal responsibilities in the leftover time given the restraints of store hours, traffic and cost. I have to pay my own health insurance here in the usa as my employer does not pay for it, but I pay far less in taxes on the same amount of income that I had in the UK which more than makes up for the cost of the insurance, but instead of being told I have to go to a gp near my home as in the uk (and not near my work and therefore extremely inconvenient), I get to choose my doctor here in the USA. When my children are sick I spend an hour taking them to and from the gp here, while in the UK it was a half day expedition involving lots of waiting in waiting rooms full of coughing sick people.
Of course there are pros and cons to the different ways of doing things, so please remember that the USA is not all evil (and neither is the UK for that matter).

I know in Sweden (& I think in Norway) that taxes are substantially higher

My brother lives in Sweden and I think he pays around 42%(this could be wrong....my forgettory is working well atm) tax - so it shouldn't be a surprise that their benefits are better too

Yup, taxes are higher in Sweden, depends on how much you earn but around 40% is not at all uncommon. Council tax is usually part of that though. Maternity/paternity leave is a lot better, but other things aren't. You have to pay to see your doctor and no matter how little income you have you never get dental care subsidised. On the other hand everyone is entitled to some money when off sick or when taking care of sick children. So it's a bit of give and take.

I am taxed at 40% in the uk. Tax is high in Norway, but salaries are also a lot higher. I was having this discussion with a group of friends 5 years ago, and then starting salary for a teacher was 40 k. My friend who was a nurse was taking home £2k net per month, he was on similar salary to my teacher friend. There are also tax breaks in December and July on account of holidays.

I work for the council and I got

12 weeks 90% - smp
12 weeks 50% + smp
then 15 weeks just smp

I have taken just 26 weeks as when I dropped to smp, also being main earner well its hard

I go back in a week and that week is annual leave.ds will be six month old

In sweden, as a primary teacher I would get 16k a year, I get a lot more a year working as a teacher here in England. Probably depends on what sort of teacher and which schools.

Starting salary for a primary teacher in Los Angeles is $55,000 (about £25,000). A teacher with 2 kids and a mortgage who earned that amount would not only not pay any taxes, but probably receive several thousand back in tax credits. They would also have several months paid maternity pay as well as excellent health insurance, and excellent pension program and various other great benefits.

Okay I'm going to jump in here and say - I'm British and live here in the USA - am a single working mother and have the best job and boss in the world. I am a full-time worker but am granted the right to work in the home and make up the hours on the days the babysitter picks up the boys. Seriously I cannot knock this. So sorry disagree with the statements. I couldn't leave like I'm living in the UK - not with the standard that I'm maintaining. Childcare is cheaper here, weather's better too . I'm sure I'm lucky, but things are changing here. More women are demanding flexible working hours and Colorado is very liberal. So I won't be heading on back to the UK anytime soon.

No SMP in Australia either.

Surely though Scandinavia can "afford" to be so generous because their populations are so small. I admit my grap of economics is minimal, but I would have thought it is far easier to have generous maternity rights and education etc when you are not providing it for as many people.

It has changed significantly since i had ds1 6 years ago and again since I had ds2 3 years ago.

This time round I wil get:
2 weeks full pay
4 weeks 90% pay
12 weeks on half pay
21 weeks on smp

I am a teacher
SMp won't be much different to half pay for me as I only work part time

So would you be happier if public sector companies used their cash to pay higher salaries but reduced their maternity/pension cover, or are you saying that every company large or small should provide the maternity benefits that a public sector organisation can offer (and reduced their salaries accordingly)?

I imagine that the nursery your kids attend has a high number of female staff and they want to retain them so provide a good maternity package, but you have to look at all their benifits including salary to judge whether they are better off than you in the end.

I think that we get quite a good deal in that we can take a year off work. Whether you get a good deal financially really depends on your whole salary package. I only got statutory maternity pay, but perhaps my company took the view that it was up to their employees to decide how they spend their money. I certainly wasn't underpaid, so that was fine for me. I am sure that the situation is very different for people in low paid jobs.

"...don't even get me started on other countries who actually respect people's right to have kids and support them financially to have proper time off with them"

Like Australia? We get a grand total of NIL days paid maternity leave from the Government. SOME companies offer 12 weeks, but it is totally up to them what they give & they aren't obligied [sp] to give anything.

My friend returned to work when her premature child was 3 weeks old [and not even due if correction is takien into consideration] as she couldn't afford any more time off [she too is the main bread winner & she had a c-section to boot!]

It would be lovely to have 12 months maternity leave on full pay, but who is going to fund it?

As a small employer, it could stop our business being viable, and if it was state funded, taxes would increase.

It's quite interesting looking at the situation in various different countries - no-one has it all.

I also got 6 months full pay maternity leave from DWP. But because the wages were so low it was not much more than SMP anyway, and definatley less than what some people in private sector were getting on only 50-80% pay.

Why do people always think civil servants don't pay for their pension/tax/NI?

It is state funded in Norway.

A smaller population to provide for equals a smaller population to get taxes from so not sure your logic holds, branflakes.

Somethings gotta give, come to think of it, we have appaling roads. My dh has just recently done a roundtrip of Scotland, in similar geography to here, with snow and cold and mountains and fjords, and say the roads are excellent and youd think such a rich Country as norway can afford to not have potholes all over mainroads..... He says even India has better roads, and that is true, they just lack proper pavements ... Extreme import duty on cars means most cars are twice the price of in England, luxury taxes on alcohol and tobacco means that also is twice as expensive than in the UK. You cant get a bottle of wine for less than £8, and if you want a Chablis be prepared to pay from £ 16 for that! I guess prioritising and budgeting for a whole country is quite a job. Oh, you dont really get benefits here either, only disability benefits but it is damn right impossible to prove you are not fit to work. I am going to stop now.

But yes, maternity care is good!

In other countries, for example in USA (maybe not all parts but certainly some). You get 4 weeks. End of. Back to work or no money.

I think that to get paid anything for as long as 9 months is fair. And by 2010 it will be increasing to 1 year.