"Women have got greedy with maternity leave"

[Bleh]

What do you guys think?
I do kind of feel sorry for male friends, because they don't really have as much of a choice as women do when it comes to leave after having children, as men are only allowed up to two weeks, whereas women can be away for a year. It's really imbalanced. Also, this is a very difficult law for small businesses to fulfill, and discourages them from hiring women of a child-bearing age.

If I was in charge, I would make it so that you can choose to use some of your NI contributions to take extra maternity leave (rather than the employer footing the whole bill), and would have the government give more financial support/tax breaks to small companies that need the assistance.

EdgarAllenPoo - you make a good point about men doing jobs. I think one of the reasons men get paid more on average and get promoted faster is that they threaten to leave firms more often whereas women with DCs have less leverage. As you say, they have to "they take their breaks where they find them" and hence are exploited by firms in pay and promotion negotiations.

Also firms know a woman who asks for flexibilty in hours is likely to not be able get the same flexbility elsewhere so she has to in effect take an implied pay cut per hour to get that flexibility or go without promotion. Seen it happen pretty routinely with female friends who have DCs.

agree that parents should be able to split the leave between them - however long is given.

Just to play devil's advocate -

Abra1 said
Interestingly, there is a higher proportion of women in very senior posts in the US than there is in Sweden--I listened to something about it on Radio 4 today.

So it may be great for you as a mother but less good if you have very serious work ambitions. I mean, after being absent for a year in some businesses you'd have fallen off the radar.

Is it better for children to grow up in a society where there mother goes back to work soon after birth and the employment opportunities are more equal or one where the parents/mother stay at home longer and where one parent ends up scaling back their career as a result?

I have no source, but I think what Abra says about the US is also true for France, where ML is shorter and most babies are looked after by someone other than the parents from 10 weeks old. I know the child should be paramount in this argument, but does it really have an effect on the child when the parent(s) goes back to work? My own personal experience of France is no, but that is personal, anecdotal. My own experience of the US, while limited, suggests that most American people have a very strongly ingrained work ethic.

Has anyone considered that the actual result of opening parental leave to men is that employers will abandon schemes more generous than the ?

At the moment, only 50% of my staff could go off and a lower percentage of my key workers vulnerable (say 10-20%). Open it to men and my exposure doubles.

So, in order to keep costs down I could revert to statutory minimum or I could halve the benefits available.

The truth of the matter is those who are on statutory minimum are unlikely to take up the offer anyway. Why? Assume man and woman earn median wage. With woman taking maternity leave the couple will be £200 or so a week worse off, with a man you will be £300 or so. Who can take that kind of hit?

As I say, I really think you are in danger of giving away something for nothing.

I do completely take the points about men having as much to give children as women. I often think my husband is much better at looking after babies than me. So much more patience..

flyingcloud, see you're playing devils advocate, anyway my thoughts on your post.

Re the US someone else said that as mat leave is so short they have far more SAHM. So it looks like the opportunities are there for the ambitious / people who have or want to return to work after such a short time at home with the baby. However the others opt out entirely. The thing is that (I hope) that opportunities here are reasonaably good for women who are prepared to return to work full time v quickly, not missing a beat. The difference is that at least women have a choice to remain away from work longer. It's not desirable to say women are only allowed 6 weeks off - it is desirable to change the working culture so that women are not penalised for having a lot of time off.

It would also be interesting to see, of the US working mothers and the scandinavian working mothers, which are happier with things.

I am not sure what your point about work ethic is?

what percentage take extended transferrable paternity leave in those countries that offer it? 4%?

i agree it is good to offer it, but not that it would make a huge difference to the fortunes of women in this country.

i think employers need to be woken up to the benefits of employing working mums, rather than being scared out of it by ill-thought out rubbish pieces of journalism like this.

@Abetadad..i actually got so angry i nearly cried when i had a performance review and got the impression i was being told i was barred from a higher grade by virtue of my part-time status. (i mean, the potential bonus is worth a months wage, and already pro rata) I'm very glad that i did, because whatever i said, my boss had changed her mind by next time....and that bonus paid our mortgage for a month when DH lost his job and before Tax credits year-end..though in a way i felt i'd bullied her into it.

I think that 6 weeks at the beginning for men would be a good start. Bonding, supporting the mother, these early days are very hard and don't last for long.

Amongst my friends, all of the men who could took holiday to extend their paternity leave - my DH managed to be at home for 5 weeks with DD1 and 4 weeks with DD2. It seems like quite a normal thing to do, in our circle anyway.

I think that, certainly at the beginning, most men would want and take more leave. That would be a start...

one effect short ML does have is on breastfeeding - although some people get around it, really not easy to manage any time before 5 mo...and not particularly easy then...

i really wanted to be at home longer, but could only take the paid portion...

isn't one of the main problems faced by smaller employers that the governemnt makes it hard for them to reclaim the MP through NI? (i thought you can claim this back, but hve to pay a certain level in employers NI - which seems v. unfair to me)

In my firm certainly my US colleagues with their 6 weeks are very envious of us UK workers with our year. They do seem to go back, though. I must admit I often wonder if its because of the healthcare. I get the impression that things can unravel pretty quickly if you aren't in an employer plan.

It would be interesting to find what % of american women give up their jobs so as to stay off longer, and what the BF rates are amongst those in work.

Agree with edgarallenpoo that BF is clobbered by shorter mat leaves - no two ways about it.

Well just speaking anecdotally, I have two American friends who both quit their jobs when they had their babies as they didn't want to go back when the babies were only 3 months old. They both BF.

Personally speaking I had a year for both of mine, but mainly because I am lucky enough to work for the civil service that is very generous with its maternity leave. But I still had to use savings for the last 6 months. I know though that I was very fortunate, and it's been one of the main reasons I have stayed in my job - I feel that I owe them for their generosity.

In this article form July 2008 it said that "A six-month consultation exercise [into parental leave] is to be launched today through the online chat rooms Mumsnet and Dad.info". Does anyone know if that happened and what the outcome was?

Yes agree about the BF. Fewer women BF here in France due to shorter ML.

In the industry I work in there are far more successful women in the US than in any other country in the world which is partly what I based my comments on.

It says here that men can take the 2nd 6 months of maternity leave from 2012 as long as woman returns to work. News to me..must stop Mumsnetting and start reading the paper..

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6881665.ece

We would have gone for that I reckon. I earned more than DH and it might have meant that we made different arrangements than the ones we made in the end ie can I go part time please? no fuck off.

The 6 month thing is a shame though - I went off 6 weeks before DD1 was due and she was 2 weeks late, so I would have had to go back at 4 months, which brings us back to the whole BF thing again...

Shame they can't make it flexible so eg woman could take 8 months then man 4 or whatever.

Wonder how they're going to calculate the pay for the man's period of leave - £100 a week? In that case, wonder what the take-up will be...

Having said all this, the fact is that hardly any women in the UK are still BF at 4 months/6 months whatever. So from a purely pragmatic POV, for most people it will work. Just not for lentil weavers

My employer pay women on maternity leave for the first six months, some at full pay, some at half pay. After that there are 3 months on statutory maternity pay then 3 months with no pay. I know that they are unusual in paying more than statutory pay but I think this should be the norm.
From my employers point of view it is a difficult situation to manage. The job I do is a specialist one which requires a couple of years training so it is not possible to get people in to provide cover for those on maternity leave. This leaves the rest of the staff having to cover for the person who is off which is difficult.
A large part of the working population are, or will be, parents at some time so employers need to recognise this and start making provision for maternity leave cover and flexible working arrangements, even if it is expensive. This will result in a happier and more productive workforce.

I'm the main wage earner in our household so it would be extremely difficult for us to manage financially on statutory maternity pay. I'm sure there are a lot of women who are in my position. Having a minimum period of maternity leave at full pay, say 3 or 4 months, and then reduced pay or statutory pay to 9 months, then 3 months unpaid would give people options and remove some of the financial concerns. I think maternity leave should become 'parental leave' which can be shared between the parents and taken at the same time if you choose to. That way both of you could spend the first few months with the baby.

I still think that splitting the leave will lead to more pressure on mothers to go back earlier (ie at 6 months) and that the uptake by partners will be poor. Interesting that someone assumed it would be paid, I think that it will start with 3 months at 100 quid a week then nothingfor the remaining 3 months very quickly the 3 months paid will be dropped.

I think that very few Fathers will take leave because of concerns about damaging their career.

We are culturally so far away away from Sweeden and how it views parenting that simply allowing parents to swap the time will not change that.

I also think that a lot of the call to do so comes from families where either the Mother is the major wage earner or is self-employed ie they have far more to gain from this than the vast majority of families, which are still Father major wage earner/both employed by others.

I really think this is a case of being careful what you wish for or it may come true, I'm sure the people picking up the bill have worked out what would make them better off!
(and before you ask yes we are both externally employed dp earns more! we would never be able to swap leave it would finish his career)

wanting to spend as much time with your new baby being "greedy"? . I chose to take a year off with both my babies (currently on Mat leave with SMP, we have struggled a bit finacially) but I wouldn't give this special time up, I can't see how I would have managed to breastfeed either of my beautiful babies otherwise

I worked for a SME who had no maternity policy and when the first member of staff got pregnant I had to negotiate something on top of statutory. In the end we went for stat benefits but £150 per week in childcare vouchers for the first year when you came back. The idea was to support people to come back to work rather than pay them for having kids. Because it was a fixed amount, lower paid members of staff effectively got a better deal. Interestingly, when we did a benchmarking exercise we found that the best maternity benefits were in the most morally ambiguous industries (eg tobacco, oil etc.) not sure what this says about the social contract?

The bigger issue in terms of equality it seems to me is still how rigid our views of working arrangements seem to be. It still seems to be accepted that career progression is only possible if you work full-time. flexible working doesn't mean equality if it means your career just stalls.

I like to see my career as "ticking over" rather than completely stalled..

interesting point about morally ambiguous industries. I wonder if it's that they have to compensate more or if they just make more money?

Just a quick note on mat leave in the US -

Used to be that IF your employer is generous you might get 6 weeks unpaid. Any longer and you have to quit.

Bill Clinton passed the Family and Medical Leave Act which extended that to 12 weeks, still unpaid and classed as sick leave, and not available to domestic partners or children of domestic partners, only spouses

IME the higher proportion of women in management reflects that they don't take time out of their careers when they have kids. Motherhood becomes an either/or operation. I know a lot of women who became SAHM's by default, even though it meant scraping by financially, because they didn't want to turn over care of their infant to another person so soon, so they just quit. The ONE woman I know who has stayed in work after having children does so because she is able to telecommute (and can afford a nanny to watch her LO while she works and a maid to come clean her house - obv not typical). It's sad that I only know one woman who has been able to continue her career after having a baby. The rest are either starting up new, flexible, low-paying careers. or getting taken for a ride by 'work-from-home' schemes.

It's easy to say that women shouldn't be penalised for taking time out of the workforce for mat leave, but I'm afraid it's a bit of a pipe dream atm.

My (Canadian) employer does the bare stat mat leave, but offers a loyalty bonus to women who return from their mat leave, which has to be repaid if the woman quits within a year of returning.

I also vote for some sort of leave-sharing program. The number of times I wished DH could be on the hook for daily care while I swanned off to meetings and scheduled lunch breaks...

Someone mentioned employer health insurance as a reason why mothers go back in the US.

It's true. I worked with several mothers at a particular company for depressingly-low wages. They stayed with the company and didn't ask for higher wages because the insurance plan was great. Their partner worked for the living-expenses money and they worked for the health insurance. Those women couldn't quit no matter what the working conditions were because they were providing the insurance for their familes.

I'm going to post on this thread in more detail, when I get a moment - but many employers believe the cost of agency hires to cover mat leave to be too high - when they could reduce the cost of agency cover, without penalising the cost of the agency employee - you need to look at the margins and see who gets what. Also you need to look at each case - large employers can afford maternity leave provisions - just as they can afford sick leave provisions.

For example - take an employee with 10 years experience and no or negligible sick leave - and then compare a 6 month stint of maternity leave - a good employer should not be negatively impacted by good maternity leave polices. In fact a supportive employer may get incredible loyalty and goodwill from support an employee over a life changing event such as becoming a parent.

An employee who has a long service and is in a role that demands unpaid overtime may have already "paid" for her maternity leave in unpaid overtime many times over.

You also need to factor in learning curves and cost of new cover.

I could not afford to take a year, as we all know the last 3 months (?) are unpaid anyway. But there are alot of people who take the piss, which harm businesses which is the problem. Example being the women who take the whole year, get up the duff, come back for 2 months then go off again. Another example being people who take the whole year and then "demand" flex working conditions, not all business can afford to provide that.

Why is this a problem? Becuase it pisses business off and eventually means that less people will want to hire women of a childbearing age. So because a few people abuse the system, alot of women of childbearing age are prejudiced against.

God knows its hard to mix family, work and childcare. But what some people seem to miss is that there is a RECESSION ffs, and its not right that some mothers are milking the system, getting the £££ and other ppl are being m,ade redundant