Guest Post: Reforming parental leave in the UK could close the gender pay gap

[NicolaDMumsnet]

The UK’s parental leave system is confusing, inefficient, and unfair to parents. By ‘parental leave’, I mean leave in the first year after a child’s arrival. In practice, parental leave in the UK is made up of a large number of government schemes: Maternity Leave, Maternity Pay, Maternity Allowance, Paternity Leave, Paternity Pay, Shared Parental Leave, Shared Parental Pay, Adoption Leave, and Adoption Pay - all with different eligibility requirements.

One of the key issues with the system is that it perpetuates traditional gender roles, often pushing parents to behave differently from what would be best for them, their children, and society as a whole.

Society is shifting towards less gendered parenting. However, there is a hard truth for us to face: if parenthood remains gendered, so does the world of work. Promotions, high wages, and positions of responsibility go to those who take less time away from work and are not sole primary carers. If we want to narrow gender pay gaps and increase representation of women at senior levels in a range of careers, it is necessary for parenthood to also become more gender equal, starting with parental leave. This does not have to be to the detriment of the health of birth mothers: more leave for partners can mean having a partner around to help with the child and so can actually support the mother’s wellbeing overall.

Reform remains far from simple, which is why it should be based on careful research. However, there is little existing data on the experiences and choices made by parents. Please help achieve effective reform by sharing, and taking, this quick survey if you are a parent or expecting.

Why parental leave matters for gender equality
Academic research from several countries has found that most of the gender pay gap in European countries is driven by gendered responses to parenthood – in the UK, the gender pay gap is approximately 10% at the birth of a couple’s first child, but this increases to 30% after 10 years. After having a child, mothers disproportionately take more parental leave than fathers. Parental leave is meant to be temporary, with parents returning to work after it ends. However, mothers are much more likely than fathers to take on a long-term primary care role after the end of parental leave, often going part-time or leaving their jobs. This leads, on average, to fewer women reaching positions of responsibility and better-paid roles.

Why do mothers often not return to work full-time after parental leave? In part, this happens precisely because mothers take more parental leave than their partners, establishing a norm of the mother doing more childcare. Research from Germany shows that when fathers take paternity leave it leads to a long-run increase in the amount of childcare they do: on average more than an additional hour a day. This shows that more gender equal parental leave would contribute to parents sharing childcare and work responsibilities more equally not just in the year after the arrival of their child, but in the longer term. As well as closing the gender pay gap and increasing the presence of women in senior jobs, enabling more women to work could be a powerful way of kickstarting economic growth. This is especially true in the UK’s current situation of having high vacancies and needing more workers to fill them.

Reforming the UK’s parental leave system
So why do mothers take much more parental leave than fathers? In the UK, one of the reasons is that the parental leave system incentivises it. To start, Statutory Maternity Leave is one year, while Statutory Paternity Leave is just two weeks. While theoretically mothers can give up some of their entitlement and pass it on to their partner (opting into Shared Parental Leave), only approximately 40% of parents are eligible to do this. Moving towards a more equal length of leave for parents is likely to help. For instance, reform might include making all parents eligible to share a year of parental leave as they prefer. Another issue is that leave needs to be better paid. Currently, statutory parental leave pay is below minimum wage, incentivising the lower-earning parent, often the mother, to take time off.

What drove your decisions as a parent, and what reforms would help the most? Make your voice heard and help advocate for evidence-based reform by answering this quick survey. Please also share it with others – reform will be better if it is representative of a wider variety of people.

Francesca has agreed to come back to this post at a later date to answer any questions you may have.

Hi, my daughter is on foster to adopt leave. She has been told that she has the same maternity rights as any other birth parent however she wasn’t allowed time for her social worker visits, her visits to the child etc. she took the time out of her annual leave. Is this fair when birth mothers at work were allowed their hospital appointments etc whilst being paid the time to do so. She has been told to go back into work, forgoing the full maternity leave allowance. Also the child she is fostering to adopt has separation anxiety and developmental needs. Work is not looking at flexible working for her. She is a single adopter. The attitude is very much ‘ you chose to take this route, it’s up to you to make it work’. What my daughter has actually done is take a baby from the system and provided her child with the best possible home. This should be respected and support given to ensure my daughter can continue looking after her. She just wants to be treated equally to parents who can have their own children.

Apologies, I wanted to clarify, my daughter doesn’t want benefits etc, she works. All she is asking for is the same rights under the equality act where maternity is one of the nine protected characteristics.

Paternity leave wasn't an option for us as DH is a locum in the gig economy(education) and doesn't get offered pat leave. As the gig economy is thriving how do you think that type of employment affects the issue. Conversely its much more flexible for DH to take time off for childcare.

I agree with what you say about parental leave but that only covers the first few months of childcare. To truly free up mothers, allowing them to go back to work with no cost worries, there should be free childcare. Childcare costs are too high considering the low wages some people get.

France has had a free system, école maternelle/nursery, for more than 70 years. They open at 8.30-4.30 for all children from the age of 2/3 years old, some maternels opening at 8 am till 6pm.

Giving free childcare will help more to liberate mothers enabling them to fight for an equal place in the future workforce.

Thanks this is really interesting. I was struck by how gendered the whole of the maternity leave year felt, like a time capsule to the 1950s.
Obviously pay and money are big deciding factors around who does primary care in that first year. But don't underestimate societal expectations too. Even amongst women who have so far had successful careers etc, I was surprised at how much the expectation was for mothers to demonstrate that childcare came 'naturally' to them and spending extended time with infants/cutting hours to part time was a choice that 'good' mothers made. By contrast, I felt like I had to justify going back to work any earlier than the 12 month maternity period.
The assumption of mother as primary caretaker is very much alive and kicking, and it's hard to go against that grain without feeling bad

Hi everyone, great to see so many of you engaging with these issues both in the comments and by taking the quick survey!
Today I will be replying to the comments I have received so far, but please feel free to add comments in the coming days - I will make sure to reply to any of those too.

Hi @Sin1,

I completely understand your frustration: your daughter has made a brave choice, and it sounds like she isn't receiving as much support as she should.

Partly, as you have pointed out, the UK's statutory system protects birthing parents' right to take time off work for antenatal appointments, but there isn't a similar right for adoptive parents. This is one of many areas that the government should consider reforming to better help parents, and society as a whole.

It also sounds like your daughter's employer has forced her to return to work while she was still legally entitled to taking more time off as part of her right to adoption leave. If this is the case, she can ask for compensation by taking her case to the Employment Tribunal. She might be able to get free advice and support from organisations such as Maternity Action, ACAS, and Civil Legal Advice.

Hi @Ukrainebaby23,

Thanks for sharing your experience. The UK's statutory system involves very different rights for parents depending on the type of work they do. In particular, if the partner of the mother is not an employee (e.g. self-employed or agency worker) they have no right to paternity or shared parental leave.

As you mention, with the rise of the gig economy, it is becoming increasingly important to grant parents more rights even when they are not employees. This is a crucial area for future reform to make the system more functional and more fair.

As you also point out, it is sometimes easier for gig economy workers to work flexibly, and take unpaid time off for childcare. However, it's also important to remember that this varies a lot depending on the type of work: for some workers, `flexibility' in working hours means being told last minute when their shift is, with little-to-no power to influence it. Many jobs are slowly moving towards increased options for flexibility - this is a great opportunity for workplaces to become more family friendly, but it is important for policy to ensure greater flexibility really is flexibility, and that it is helping, not damaging, workers.

Hi @Reigateforever,

I couldn't agree more. Reforming parental leave is very important, but the benefits would be much greater if early childcare was also reformed.

High quality, affordable childcare for very young children is essential for parents (particularly mothers) to be able to return to work. If we want to support parents in continuing to work, it cannot be cheaper for the lower-earning parent to stay home than to pay for nursery.

Hi @Thetractorjustmoved,

Thanks for sharing your experience. The power of traditional gender norms in parenting is very entrenched, and I have heard stories from many parents who have felt constrained by them, and really struggled to make the choices they felt were right for them because of the reactions from their family, friends, and co-workers.

While social norms are shifting towards equal parenting, shifts in norms are typically very slow, especially if government policy continues incentivising a traditional, gendered split between work and parenting. If we reform parental leave to enable, and even incentivise, equal parenting, that will help speed up the shift in social norms too.

While it will still often be hard for parents to take non-traditional routes in the coming years, policy can make it less hard, and as more people start doing it, it will become easier for more and more families to make whatever choices are best for them, instead of being forced to conform with the traditional route.

Of course the ratio would have to change as in France there are 24 children to each teacher plus maybe an assistant but all is under control.