Guest post: "Shared Parental Leave isn’t working. At all."

[JuliaMumsnet]

Years after the introduction of paid parental leave, the uptake among fathers is very low. Ros Bragg, director of Maternity Action, argues that Shared Parental Leave is inherently flawed and outlines Maternity Action's suggestion of a 'use it or lose it' model that would support fathers and second parents to take leave and lead to more equal parenting.

"It’s been six years since the policy was introduced, and the most recent data shows that take-up amongst eligible fathers is only around 3-4%. That’s far short of the 25% that the government had hoped for by now, and pretty conclusive evidence that Shared Parental Leave (SPL) isn’t fit for purpose.

But significantly, it’s not failing due to any lack of demand on the part of parents: there is ample evidence that fathers would like more time off work after the birth of a child.

Our advice lines regularly take calls from exasperated parents who desperately want to try and use the scheme, but are held back by its sheer complexity.

These are parents like Amy and John. They contacted Maternity Action after their request to take shared leave and pay at the same time was turned down, even though it is allowed under the policy. John’s employer was adamant that to pay both parents would be fraud – and by the time the query was raised with HMRC, Amy was already on maternity leave and John had to take unpaid leave.
Instead of enjoying those first few weeks and months with the baby together, both Amy and John were hugely stressed about whether or not they were going to get paid, and the situation put a huge strain on John’s relationship with his employer.

This is typical of the problems with Shared Parental Leave – parents who do want to take it are faced with a system with inherent design flaws and complexity, and a ludicrously low rate of pay: just £152 per week, equivalent to less than half of the national minimum wage.

‘Mothers need time to recover from birth’

Even the name is faulty: shared parental leave is really ‘transferable maternity leave’, as the scheme created no additional parental leave entitlement for fathers, but simply ‘enabled’ mothers to give away all but two weeks of their leave.

This means that, if a mother (not unreasonably) wants to use most or all of her maternity leave entitlement, there is little or no SPL available to the father. And the designers of the scheme knew that the average length of statutory maternity leave taken by mothers is 39 weeks – that is, the full entitlement of paid leave. And 45% of new mothers take more than 39 weeks.

This is hardly surprising, as – contrary to the impression often given by ministers – the duration of paid leave available to new mothers in the UK is short by international standards. And new mothers are not just ‘caring for’ or ‘bonding with’ their baby. They are recovering from the often severe physical and mental impacts of pregnancy and birth. Plus, they may be breastfeeding.

‘Use it or lose it’

So what’s the solution? Well, the good news is that six years’ experience of SPL confirms the lessons we could and should have learnt from parental leave policies in other countries. In short, the most successful approaches – such as those in Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Finland – are based on individual, non-transferable (‘use it or lose it’) rights to leave for each parent, and on that leave being moderately well paid.

We at Maternity Action suggest that Shared Parental Leave is scrapped altogether, and replaced with new rights to six months of paid maternity leave reserved for the mother, and six months of paid parental leave for each parent.

This would give mothers a combined paid leave entitlement of up to 52 weeks – 13 weeks more than now. And it would give fathers and other second parents a total paid leave entitlement of up to 28 weeks – that is, 26 weeks more than now.

This would mean that there is no question of the mother ‘giving up’ her recovery time after childbirth, and would mean that both parents had a right to individual paid leave to bond and care for their child.

The ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ approach would incentivise fathers and second parents to take leave when previously they would not have considered it, because of financial or other constraints.

Achieving more equal parenting is a process that will take many years and will require, in addition to more equitable rights to better paid maternity and parental leave, robust governmental action to increase the supply of affordable childcare, and a major effort by political and business leaders to drive a change in parenting culture in the workplace.

But we need to make a start. And the time to do so is now.

You can support us by writing to your local MP - just click on this link, enter your postcode, and we do the rest.

You can follow Maternity Action on twitter @MaternityAction and Ros Bragg @rosbragg.

@traumatisednoodle

Maternity leave is probably one of the most physically gruelling thing you can do!

Sorry this nonsense, 2 years to recover from the birth ? What on earth ?

Agreed! I think working FT and having a 3mo old, a 2yr old, a 5 yr old and 7 yr old was gruelling. But lounging about with one baby for two years? No way!

@traumatisednoodle @PlanDeRaccordement

That poster said it can take SOME women 2 years to recover from birth. Some. Not all.

I believe 20-40% of women who suffer 3rd or 4th degree tears are still symptomatic a year later.

Symtomatic- possibly incapable of paid work ? no

@traumatisednoodle

Maternity leave is probably one of the most physically gruelling thing you can do!

Sorry this nonsense, 2 years to recover from the birth ? What on earth ?

Just because you can't imagine it...it can happen. Injuries and trauma sustained can be considerable. Horrible, sneering post.

My DH company made it very hard for him, cocked up his pay and have made his life a misery since he went back and he will be leaving soon. My only other experience was a colleague who took SPL and then, much like many of the women who took maternity leave like me, found he was sidelined for the best projects because of a perception he wasn't 'committed' to the job.

That’s awful, I’m sorry that happened to your DH. I don’t want to be a Mumsnet armchair lawyer, but my understanding is that paternity is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, while pregnancy and maternity is. If that’s the case then it seems to me that makes SPL an even more useless mechanism. If fathers or non-birthing parents who opt to take SPL don’t even have legal protection from discrimination for deciding to take it, then it’s a total gimmick.

@traumatisednoodle - well, that depends on the extent of the woman’s injuries. But no one’s suggesting women need two years of maternity leave. They’re just saying that pregnancy and childbirth can be an extremely gruelling physical experience that can take months or even years to recover fully from, and many women need their full 52 weeks’ maternity leave for that purpose.

[quote KarmaKarmaKarmaChameleon]**@traumatisednoodle* @PlanDeRaccordement*

That poster said it can take SOME women 2 years to recover from birth. Some. Not all.

I believe 20-40% of women who suffer 3rd or 4th degree tears are still symptomatic a year later.[/quote]
True. I had a 3rd degree tear my first childbirth. I required 28 internal stitches and 17 external. I had to carry a pillow everywhere because it hurt to sit down and going to the toilet required bottles of wash, antiseptic etc. Not fun.
But as baby was two weeks late when he was ten weeks old, I was back at work FT. (And did exclusively do breastfeeding/pumping).
Never completely healed. Can’t hold on farts for example.
Second baby re-tore be along the scars. Same recovery.
Third baby, only a 2nd degree tear! And fourth baby only skid mark/abrasions no actual tearing.

So, 2 yrs? Still think that is more than is needed. I wasn’t fully recovered when I went back to work, but I was recovered enough to work.

Maybe combined with better sick pay and policies so that those who do sustain more severe birth injuries are supported longer term? I've got one friend who had to take medical retirement as the injuries she sustained during birth of third child were too severe to work.

Mine was a difficult birth, with two tears and an episiotomy, which physically took 4-5 months recovery, and severe PND which blighted a lot of maternity leave, but recovery from that included going back to work so I didn't need extra time 'off' to recover from it.

Has anyone credited Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems in the coalition government for persuading the Conservatives to get this introduced in the first place? Ok it might not be a perfect scheme but it was a start.

Great post

Sorry I posted too soon, Maternity Actions post and proposal is excellent and I will write to my MP.

The country can't afford it.

I really value that the Maternity Action proposal recognises the physical effort of motherhood. I can see that posters above disagreed but I did feel it took two years to get back to normal after my births, mainly exhaustion from pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding along with all the hormonal chaos. I wanted to work, but the ideal would have been reduced hours to cope better at work, with family, and not just feel totally wrecked for the best part of 5 years. I would have wanted to go back to work part-time after only a few months, actually, but only if my partner would have taken over as carer and financially that was impossible. The SPL argument would hopefully be part of a big pandemic discussion about more flexible work, work that can suit different abilities/ disabilities - but I know it would take huge government support for employers to make that happen, and I don’t know if this government have the stomach for that much hard work. But at least getting a form of SPL which actually gives women more choices instead of fewer, would be a good start.

So, 2 yrs? Still think that is more than is needed. I wasn’t fully recovered when I went back to work, but I was recovered enough to work.

Is anyone talking about taking two years off work or saying they shouldn’t have to work? I must have missed that. All I saw was a poster saying that women should have their right to 52 weeks’ maternity leave because childbirth can be incredibly gruelling physically and can take some women as long as two years to recover from. It really wasn’t a controversial statement.

The fact that childbirth can be difficult and dangerous is one of the reasons the 52 week entitlement was introduced.

@user1493494961

The country can't afford it.

The country can't afford not to!

So many women I know who are qualified (sometimes to doctorate level) in STEM subjects, and with years of industry experience, then end up side-lined at work or taking jobs way below their ability level in order to support family life. Hasn't happened to any of the fathers, surprise, surprise That's a skills loss which directly impoverishes our country.

Equal parental leave would both
a) address the social expectation that mother are the default parent (which leads so many women to take a huge career hit) and also
b) remove a perceived difference in commitment to work which employers too often use as an excuse to discriminate.

It's a necessary first step.

Shared is the problem. It needs to be two separate sets of leave that are "use it or lose it" rather than one partner taking part of the other's entitlement.

It would also be nice if there was some flexibility to make decisions around mat/pat/shared leave after the birth when you have a better idea what situation you are dealing with.

I'll add to this. 100% agree it's FAR too complicated and off-putting to many. But another reason is the way enhanced pay is structured in many workplaces. Let's say a workplace offers 6 months enhanced maternity leave on full pay to mothers. A lot of women hope to take 6 months+ maternity leave in order to breast feed and wean the baby, for example (if that's their plan of course). What this means is that if the father (not the mother) works for an organisation offering this enhanced first 6 months leave, this couple cannot benefit from it at all which is ludicrous. The mother will have to take whatever her own employer offers and the father will have to have ShPP if they want to go down the SPL route which is not a good plan financially. Why is there no flexibility on the employers' part in respect of the timing of the enhanced leave, this would encourage SO many people, particularly dads, to take SPL, and mums could return earlier if they wish to do so. Not thought through at all!

Would it be possible at all to do a case study of the countries where this has been implemented successfully? I believe that in Sweden paternity wasn’t really socially accepted 20 years ago whereas it now is viewed as normal.

A few thoughts,

It is good for women also in the long run. I believe that there are studies that fathers who have been home on paternity leave are more likely to stay home with a sick child.

It needs to be a use it or lose it approach.

It needs to be at least half decent pay so that the potential income cut from paternity leave doesn’t hurt the family.

Funding may need to be from the government. Small businesses are struggling and additional financial burdens will be difficult to carry. I may be wrong but I have a sense that men are more likely to work in small businesses (plumbing, construction, etc) and it just need to be arranged in a way that fathers can benefit without strangling the business (again, case studies?).

100% in support of this and have sent the email. I’m 7 months with my first and we are planning to do SPL, first 9 months for me and last 3 for DH but I must admit I am nervous about going back before the full year. DH is really keen to do it though and financially makes sense as his employer offers full pay but they haven’t committed fully (circumstances might change etc) so it may well end up that he can’t take it. A use it or lose it system with 2 separate pots of leave would be so much better.

We tried to use it with my firstborn. Both DH and I work for the NHS so you'd expect it to be a relatively well-known process. However both the trusts we work for (we work for 2 different ones) were open that they didn't really understand how to facilitate our request as so few people ask for it. In the end they took so long faffing about that time was getting tight and we decided not to pursue it. Subsequently when our second child was born recently we didn't even bother trying. I think as others have said it needs to be a separate right to maternity leave to be truly useful and also for employers to be better informed as to how it works.

Having separately allocated leave for both parents is a great idea. There really needs to be that kind of 'you may as well take it' incentive for fathers, if anything just to shift attitudes initially. Maternity leave was the first time I really felt that I was being boxed in as a woman. My husband wanted to shared the load, but it just wasn't financially viable for him to take an extended time at home, particularly as my job was only part time anyway. We would have gone from his full time salary, down to statutory pay, and only gained my part time pay.
Maybe a flexi, part time hours approach to parental leave could work, to accommodate the fact that many mothers work part time?

I am ambivalent. I think women should have far more help because regardless of laws, women will always shoulder the biggest share of childcare (Covid gives us real evidence). Whilst society tries its best to introduce progress, it seems to apply mainly to middle class parents. Giving more help to women would help address this disparity, or is it expected that the (tiny) amount of progress would trickle down?

Yes it does need to be changed in many ways, but if we're aiming for more equality (not just at work but in the relationship with our children and each other), mothers have to be prepared for share the leave too. Most of my friends think of the leave as being "mine".

We've used it both times. Some things were tough and tricky because of the current scheme, but the relationships on this house are 10000% better.

Do a lot of men (and women) want this? My DH works for a large multinational company and they offer fathers and mothers 6 months of full pay each. The uptake for men? 2%!

There is just not the culture yet, and it’s seen by some in the financial field at least, as skiving and damages your work reputation. Plus, it would cut your bonus total so most (nearly all) men don’t.