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.

@SecondGentleman this proposal isn't about unpaid leave. It's proposing to increase paternity leave from 2 weeks to 28 weeks, paid.

@mistermagpie

I think it's sad that so many women are saying 'I didn't want to give up my precious time with the baby'

What about the fathers time with the baby? What about the baby's time with it's dad? Why doesn't this matter?

Because these are the exact same men that women on here are moaning about constantly who do fuck all with their children, and one way to maybe ensure that this doesn't happen is to actually let them spend time with them from day one.

This is spot on!

If you don't want to "give up" your time then please do it with your eyes open as to the assumptions you are creating within your family.

First time round I approached my own mat leave as a team - "my" leave became "our leave" and we decided, as a team, how we should apportion it. I expected to approach childrearing as an equal team so it made sense to approach leave like this.

So I do worry that this proposed policy that says mothers get 12 months and Fathers get 6 months enshrines the idea that it has to be mothers who are out of the work place for longer - to me it feels unbelievably old fashioned! Surely for millions of families it would be better the other way round. Give men and women equal rights and let families choose for themselves.

User58612

It's because of how men can't breastfeed and there's a real encouragement to promote longer breastfeeding duration in the UK because of the long term health benefits.

It literally does have to be women out of the workplace for longer, if you are taking the stance that a) bf is to be encouraged and b) milk should be the primary source if nutrition before 1.

Oh and before pumping gets thrown in as the answer, no thank you. I pumped exclusively for 6m for complicated reasons and it would not have been compatible with working, it was also no substitute for direct feeding as a means of maintaining adequate milk supply

These proposals improve the situation by giving men/second parents their own entitlement, independent of mothers which increases the current leave+pay from 2 weeks to 6 months. Of the tiny number of men who have used the current Shared Parental Leave system, there are going to be very very few who have taken longer than 6 months. Shared Parental Leave enshrined the very old fashioned idea that all leave related to birth and early childcare belongs to the mother, and the father/second parent is not entitled to any additional time off beyond 2 weeks unless the mother agrees to give up part of her entitlement.

This new proposal gives fathers/second parents their own separate entitlement of 6 months. In the longer term, it would be ideal to extend that to 12 months, but I can see that asking for a jump from 2 weeks paid leave to 52 weeks paid leave for fathers/second parents is something that might be too big an ask initially.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

User58612

It's because of how men can't breastfeed and there's a real encouragement to promote longer breastfeeding duration in the UK because of the long term health benefits.

I totally agree - I have breastfed both my children exclusively for 6 months and then until they were 1 along side solids. With #2 my DH had more time off than me (I went back at 4 months because I have an awesome job and that's what made sense for us as a family) and I did still manage to breastfeed - so while it's definitely not easy (reverse cycling!) and I totally understand this is not for everyone and me and my husband are not doing things how they are "usually" done - no, it doesn't have to be this way and it shouldn't be enshrined in law.

Yes they do improve things in many ways... and if all men took the full 6 months it would be amazing!

Just a shame that SPL didn’t take off and I don’t think the policy is as inherently flawed as people like to make out.

[quote AssassinatedBeauty]@SecondGentleman this proposal isn't about unpaid leave. It's proposing to increase paternity leave from 2 weeks to 28 weeks, paid. [/quote]
Well, yes. And I've been very clear that I don't think extended paid leave is a realistic proposal. So we need to consider what options are achievable and whether they will have the intended impact. Otherwise everything will just remain exactly as it is, which is a shame because there are some specific problems with SPL that could really do with being sorted out.

Yes, there are specific problems with SPL. It requires women to surrender their leave, it has no built in entitlement for men. It is also complex to implement and businesses have been very unwilling to get to grips with it. As per the example in the OP. Making paternity leave longer is a much simpler proposal.

You can work and BF long term. I BF to 3.5 years and went back to work at a year (would have preferred six months but there we are). Baby only wanted to BF twice a day from nine months and once a day from 18mo so extremely easy to fit in with work. She was combi-fed for first year but my niece was EBF and her mum went back at 9 months (long shifts too!).

Two weeks paternity leave isn't anywhere near long enough, especially at the statutory rate paid. We didn't come home from hospital properly until our baby was eight days old (had been home briefly then readmitted) and DH had been with me at hospital during labour for 3 days before the birth. I'd have been totally on my own from day 3 at home (zero extended family support) if he hadn't also taken some annual leave. As it was even with his support I had severe PND by the time he did go back.

I think a lot of families would lose out short term, where the father earns more then then the family will lose too much income to take it up. I also think it would just end up forcing women to decide whether to return to work at 6 months or give up their career short term as it feels as though it's too soon to leave their baby. I'm all for equality, but a lot of career women (myself included) want to have a full year with their baby. I spent 9 months growing the baby in my womb, I think I'm entitled to decide what works best for my family. Besides that, my husband is freelance and many more people are becoming freelance, will they be entitled to maternity pay under this new scheme? Freelancers aren't currently entitled to maternity pay, and it's unlikely the government are going to change this anytime soon. So, it seems to me that this idea would benefit the government most as a cost-saving strategy.

It might make employers prefer older workers. Who can afford to lose dads and mums for this length of time? Only bigger wealthy companies. Everyone else will avoid employing them.

@GreyEyedWitch this proposal doesn't reduce or shorten the leave for women. It would give 6 months to each parent, on top of 6 months for mothers. So giving mothers 12 months paid leave and fathers/second parents their own leave of 6 months paid.

Currently, women who don't qualify for maternity pay can claim Maternity Allowance instead. So freelancers can currently claim 39 weeks of maternity allowance at £152 a week.

Or the men will be made redundant as pregnant women are. Be careful what you wish for.

I do understand that some women feel that 6 months is too soon to return to work... but how do you think the fathers in these situations feel when they had to return to work after 2 weeks?

If you genuinely believe that men and women are equal parents and should approach childrearing as two parts of an equal team I think you would find the idea that 2 weeks off for a man is fine but 6 months off for a woman is abhorrently short very strange indeed.

Sorry, going off the original topic of the proposals by maternity action... but I think this thread exposes lots of engrained old-fashioned attitudes. Maybe I am a wierdo but I do not share them and I genuinely see my DH as an equal partner to me when it comes to parenting and wanted him to have time alone with our babies, in a way that worked for us. Happy to report I am not one of those women that complains that my DH doesn't do enough with the kids or enough around the house and I don't think it's a coincidence.

As a thought experiment - would people's view change if it were 2 women? Would people find it reasonable that the mother who gave birth refused to share any of her leave even though there was a policy that allowed it and expected the other mother to go back to work after 2 weeks?

As an aside - this is an interesting discussion, thank you for everyone who is contributing.

We did shared parental leave the first time. My employer (civil service) was so difficult about it second time round were not bothering. DH is doing compressed hours and working from home mostly which is really nice but honestly work we're such a pain about it I couldn't go through the stress when pregnant of getting it all arranged again.
Also I think some women may be pressured into giving up their leave entitlement. At least the first few months of mat leave are recovery and for some women it's much more.

I know loads of women who could not wait to get back to work. Men ditto. It’s really not the same for everyone and parents really do have different feelings about childcare and who does what. The idea of having my husband doing childcare wasn’t what I wanted. Nor he. We played to our strengths and he was self employed. What happens when the company owner decides to go on parental leave for months? Or a project loses key members of staff for months on end? Companies work around the current rules and can manage but asking even more is problematic in smaller organisations.

It might also come as a surprise that men don’t actually want more leave. They actually might like to carry on working. As do some women. Parents are not all the same.

Yeah it’s about time the government sorted this out.

What’s shocking is the complete lack of knowledge on how this policy works by so many HR teams. We had a terrible time trying to sort this out and my company were adamant that my husband and I shouldn’t be off at the same time.

We sorted it eventually after having to go through the policy ourselves and present a very detailed case to our HR departments. Total nightmare - no wonder the uptake is so low.

HR person here-

In my experience, SPL is massively overly complicated and difficult to administer and it seems to be quite difficult for staff and managers to understand the entitlements, notification requirements, pay implications etc.

Plus of course hardly anyone ever takes it.

We need to do much better in terms of time off and particularly decently paid time off for new parents.

My husband and I took Shared Parental Leave and the local authority I work for really struggled to process it as they had never done one before! They said we couldn’t take it at the same time (we had the first 6 weeks together then my husband took over at 8.5 months) but it was eventually sorted after I sent the legislation through to them. Everyone was trying to be helpful but they genuinely had no clue how to deal with it!

My husband took it and became primary cater for our son from 6-9 months. It was good for all of us. We could do it though because I'm the main earner so to have him in statutory made more sense. I know many who wanted to do the same but couldn't afford. The inequality of parental pay at this time with employers only offering an enhanced package to women is a serious barrier to making this work. It's surely an equal pay issue but case law so far says not!

I agree with the OP. My DH tried his best to stack paternity and annual leave together when each of our children was born, but Norway style leave for dads would have definitely helped me more.

We considered splitting maternity leave for our youngest, when it became an option, but DH's employer at the time was so toxic that they tried to "encourage" him to use annual leave for 2 weeks rather than his statutory paternity leave (which he could still take without eating into my leave entitlement). I also really needed the entire 52 weeks -- my girls didn't sleep through until they were 3 years old. Nothing worked, and I was exhausted.

There can be few ideas more old fashioned than the idea that two parent families should be financially rewarded by the state over other forms of child rearing.

A mother should receive a maternity allowance (regardless of her employment status) and then a further allowance which she can direct be paid to a person of her choosing. That money can then go to be a paid period for whoever actually does most to support the mother and baby, whether that be the father, a grandparent, a sibling, a romantic partner or a friend.

Agree agree agree. Thank you.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Interesting that £152 per week is seen as "ludicrous" when discussed in terms of fathers taking leave but the vast majority of women only ever got this on maternity leave.

This was my thought exactly.