to get a job, just so i can get maternity leave and pay

[doyouthinkthisisok]

or do you think its fair enough, you've paid in for years and your only claiming what you are entitled to, or do you think its a bit off?

my dd is 17 months old and we have decided to try for another i am a sahm at the moment.
perhaps i should of gone back to my old job, 5 months ago?
the extra money we would get from mat leave would make it some much easier for us.
of course if i got a job next week, i have no idea how long it would take to get pg

I think Suey makes a fair point. If you deliberately choose a job that gives you school holidays rather than going for something higher paid and sacrificing the holidays, it's a bit much to then complain about it. And I'm not denying that some jobs are badly paid - they are. But ultimately it'a choice isnt it. I earn a pretty good salary, but I work damn hard for it; I don't finish at 3.30 or have every school holiday off. Fair play to those who want low stress work to fit around school hours, but the downside is you're not going to make big bucks

amdingdong dont you only have to pay the extra if you get any? I never paid my SMP back when I left my last job (didnt rturn post ds3)

didnt when I downgraded to part time after ds2 either actually

You don't have to pay MA or SMP back. It can make a huge difference, especially as MA is not counted as income for Child Tax Credits purposes, so is in fact 'cash in hand' to you. i.e. in addition to tax credits.

AFAIK You dont have to pay back SMP. You may have to back any extra you recieved. It depends on your contract.

I was entitled to 18 weekd full time pay which I didnt have to pay back if I didnt return

Also, MA can work to your advantage in other ways. I was working 5 hours per week when my 2nd Mat leave started. However, because for 13 weeks of my 'test period' I had worked for 30 hours per week (I reduced my contract in Jan '07, Mat leave started in July '07), I was able to claim MA at the full rate.

My wage at the time was £55 per week (was a nurse) for 5 hours, but got paid MA at £116 per week for 39 weeks, more than double my wage, and my Tax Credits went up because the hospital weren't paying me.

(I also declined the Occupational Maternity Pay because I knew I was unlikely to return, and it was unclear if that would preclude MA even though I wasn't entitled to SMP)

I think YABU. You have to be in a job for, i think, 26 weeks before they have to pay you maternity pay.

I look at this through an employers eyes (dp is self employed) and so i know what grief it can cause through someone being pregnant. Every employer has to do a risk assessment for the pregnant woman and make sure the job she is doing complies to health and safety laws etc.

So you could go into a job and get pregnant but that employer has then got to make sure your not doing anything that could put your baby at risk ie; lifting, standing too long etc plus potentialy find cover while you attend maternity appointments, have days off sick (not everyone does but with pregnancy you just never know.) Then they have to find someone to cover your maternity leave because by law they have to keep your job open.

You would just be creating a big pile of stress for some employer out there. So yes yabu.

I never had a risk assessment done with my pregancies. Even though with my first pregnancy I was surrounded by people working with radiation.

I am 10 weeks pregnant and my duties have not been made any lighter. I do ask for help with lifting large objects but my job is still fairly physical.

What sort of job is the OP looking for? Not all jobs are highly responsible.

Sometimes you just have to live your life for yourself. Babies aren't always that easy to concieve. Or sometimes women get surprises.

But MsSparkle - the law says that it is a woman's right to be employed, and it is her right a) to get pregnant at any point, and b) to be pregnant and not tell your employer prior to 25 weeks.

And you do NOT have to be in the job 26 weeks. You have to have been in the job before falling pregnant to qualify for SMP, and for 26 weeks at the week before birth for MA.

So, you could get a job at 3 months pregnant and work right till the end of your pregnancy and still get MA.

I thought (Aand my knowledge was old) that you had the right t ask for a h&s assessment?

I never had one because frankly my job was risky by nature (unaccompanied home visits to a family where Dad was a violent addict anyone?) and pg didnt alter that; my sister had one however but because she was a vet nurse workng with harmful chemicals and at night- major changes needed to be made for her to continue

No peachy, an employer should have assessed the risk to any potentially pregnant woman irrespective of whether any of their employees are actually pregnant.

Once you have informed them in writing of your pregnancy, they HAVE to do a risk assessment.

Ah, as I said was a looooong time ago it was relevant to me

"the law says that it is a woman's right to be employed, and it is her right a) to get pregnant at any point, and b) to be pregnant and not tell your employer prior to 25 weeks."

Yes you are right there, it is every womans right to have a job and to be entitled for maternity allowances but it is just plain wrong to get a job in the knowledge that you are only applying for that job just to get maternity pay. I know if someone did that to my dp how pissed off and annoyed we would be and it would probably cause us to not want to employ women of a child baring age anymore.

Getting a job purely for maternity pay is the wrong attitude to have imo. I don't have time now but i am sure i read somewhere on the government website that a woman had to be with the employer a certain amount of time before the employer has to pay her maternity pay. Otherwide she has to claim another form of maternity that is not payed by the employer.

Yes, MsSparkle. You have to have been employed 26 weeks by the 25th week of pregnancy. i.e. Have worked there before you got preggnant.

Otherwise it is MA.

And you would still have to employ women of childbearing age, because not to do so breaks the law if that is the only reason.

Dp wouldn't hire someone of a child bearing age if he didn't want to. If he's been messed about by someone who has got the job to get maternity pay then it's going to give the insentive to employ any other woman of a child bearing age is it?

It might be against the law, but if asked you just say the person you did hire was more suitable/qualified for the job. Your not going to say you didn't hire someone incase they had children!

not going to give the insentive

you don't have to employ women of child-bearing age at all, as long as no one can prove that's the sole reason behind your hiring practices, which can be tricky, tbh.

hence, why i think it's wrong to get a job with the express and sole intention of the OP, because in the long run it really does make it harder for women who are trying to get a job because they really and truly need it, not just because the extra taxpayer money is nice .

By the way, dp does hire women now of a child bearing age. I was saying he probably wouldn't if he was messed about like the op is decribing.

there's a lot we taxpayers are entitled to, but if we all went and claimed just because we could, imagine how even more screwed up society would be.

I say go for it, YANBU, you are still going to be doing work for a certain amount of time (before you go off on mat leave!!) so it's not like you are getting paid for nothing.

Explain to me how it is any different to the person who get a job knowing that in 4 months time they are emigrating, or moving to the other end of the country, or their partner's will change making the job impossible.

Explain how it is different to a person taking a job as a CV filler, or a stepping stone.

Explain how it is different to taking a job because the pension is good, or the sick pay is good, or there is the possibility of funded Masters degree, or term-time working.

It isn't. People take a job because it is attractive to them. For whatever reasons meet their needs at the time.

People are criticised on here for not considering their finances before having children, yet when someone considers their finances, they get slated.

I am in the lucky position of having 'employed time' accrued, having been on unpaid mat leave. I could get a job for 13 weeks, paying £120 per week, and then qualify for the full Maternity Allowance package.

Doing the maths, that is a 300% return on my 'investment' of working. Sounds pretty sensible doesn't it? (I am unlikely to do so because I have 2 DDs under 3 and would find it pretty exhausting to work every evening for 3 months, but it would be my right to do so.)

read the thread, lou. There are many factorsnthat make pregnancy and maternity uniquely harzardous for the employer.

it is, lou, because when someone goes back to university or emigrates, teh employer is not obligated to hold the job open for them for a year and hire/arrange for replacement cover during the interim. the employer can move on.

they don't have to pay for time off for appointments, or arrange coverage, or have risk assessments/reassign duties and the like.

this person isn't considering finances, she doesn't even need the money, just sees it as a right because well, she paid taxes and the 'extra money' would be nice.

So let me get this right. Women, in the main, campaign for the right to have fair treatment during pregnancy and maternity. They achieve this. Then women tell other women that although that is their right, they are immoral if they take up their right, and should only take a job if they intend to be in it for a long time.

And Suey & MsSparkle take it a step further and say that using your right to withold information about your pregnancy is not only immoral, but they might just not hire women of childbearing age, but of course wouldn't admit that's the reason.

Priceless.

And Expat, would you not take a better job because the extra money would be nice? Would you restrict yourself because you don't 'need' the money?