Cameron advisor recommends abolishing maternity benefits

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I'm shocked that this could even be floated as a "blue sky thinking" idea - not to reduce, not to reform, but to completely suspend any requirement for companies to offer maternity benefits.

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11cc97ae-b85f-11e0-b62b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1TORBZFeY

Considering that one of the biggest obstacles to hiring is finding people with the right skills, and coming hot on the heels of the thread that's been active around here for a few days about the legions of highly qualified women that aren't using their qualifications, if anything maternity benefits and support for women once they've had children should be beefed up, not slashed.

What do people think?

Really tarty? Because removing maternity benefits seems to be based on the presupposition that women still have the earning patterns of their 50's counterparts. The problem is that nowdays in many families (my own included) the highest earning partner is the woman. To suddenly have the larger part of the family income removed, something that wasn't planned for when the pregnancy was considered, and to have the route back into the higher paying job cut off merely because that worker had the gall to be female and producing the next generation of consumers needed to keep the capatalist juggernought moving seems to be, if not short sighted, then extremely stupid.

They also appear to have forgotten that women compromise 52% of the voting population (if not more, remember we live longer).

A highly qualified woman is perfectly capable of negotiating maternity leave with her employer, isn't she? Or do we think that as a mere woman, she needs to rely on men to provide for her while she's being a mother?

The problem is that a) small businesses can't afford to take on women of child-bearing age, and b) too many women have utterly taken the piss by getting relatively well paid jobs, and using their employers to fund their own family life. We aren't a rich country anymore. This isn't the 1960s. People are going to have to take responsibility for themselves a lot more instead of expecting the state to cater to their every whim.

Am loving the idea that women take jobs so that employers can fund their family life

What do the men's employers do then? Do not men have family lives as well?

Callisto there's loads of specific statistics on the Fawcett society site. You may view the publication as 'with bias' but it's a study conducted by academics which contains robust enough evidence to build a court case around, so it's not just made up numbers.

TartyDoris, your opinions only follow any kind of logic if they're based on the fundamental assumption that women having equal employment opportunities to men isn't achievable or worth fighting for. The spurious arguments that essentially, Great Britain will end up poorer if the women won't accept that their place is in the kitchen are total cobblers and just a means of shoring up power in the male court, where it always has been. There are plenty of ways to build a fair, just, viable economy where women and men have equality in the workplace and women's childbearing status doesn't automatically compromise their careers.

I think that it is the usual storm in a teacup that will come to nothing. Maternity benefits may well be cut, but they won't be abolished. The Tory party are realists as much as anyone in government, they know that women are an integral part of the economy now more than ever.

Although I don't agree with Tarty Doris, ime her statements that small business can't afford women who go on maternity leave and (judging by some of the threads on here) that women have taken the piss are sadly true.

Callisto I think the figures that Quodlibet cited came from House of Commons Library research and relates to the emergency budget last year.

Maybe you feel personally that you're doing ok but that doesn't change the fact that more women are now worse off as a result of welfare reform, cuts to services, and pay freezes and job cuts in the public sector (which is predominantly made up of women).

And no, they couldn't get rid of maternity leave. "Blue sky thinking" my arse.

Why do you suppose the public sector is made up of women?

Twice as many women work in the public sector than men. So cuts in public service jobs hit women disproportionately. But there's a double whammy, because women also have to pick up the slack for cuts in public services themselves. Cameron and his ex-Bullingdon Club mates aren't going to be running errands for the vulnerable elderly, are they? Let alone actually cooking tea for Mrs Smith at no. 90 and helping her to eat it, or giving the poor woman a wash.