"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.

I live in Finland and worked for 6 years full time for my company before I went on maternity leave. The situation here is brilliant and I should point out that it is very widely supported. Political parties that even hint at reducing/cutting child policies have learned that they will get slaughtered at election time.

The system here is-

all maternity/paternity/parental pay comes directly from the Social Security Department.
Employers have to pay holidays earned in the year before leave.
Employers can opt to give more. Most don't as the standard is so high but in well off firms they sometimes do.
The Employer is partly compensated for the cost of maternity/parental leave cover.

A) 3 months actual maternity leave paid at 75% of salary earned in the previously completed tax year. This is designated specially for the mother to take at least 30 days before birth and 6 weeks after birth. You need the 6 week medical clearance check to go back to work if you wish.
b)3 weeks paternity leave paid at 75% of salary which can be taken cocurrently with maternity leave dating from the birth of the baby
c)8 months parental leave at 70% of salary which can be taken by either parent.
d) 25 months of home care leave paid to at home parent which is on average 500e a month.

Nursery Places are available from 11 months and cost around 250e a month.

Also if you have another child before the previous one is 3 you receive your previous maternity pay, you post is kept open and the clock goes back to zero and you can stay off another 3 years if you wish.

Many women here have around 5 years out in their late twenties/early 30s and then go back to work. I think this system works. Alot of women are forging ahead and really getting places in their forties having been back at work with kids at school in their early mid thirties.

30 years ago Finland faced a choice
-a pro-natalist bump up the birth rate "Finnish Family support" policy

or the business led "Open Borders" immigration and labour influx policy.
Most parties went for pro-natalist . The Coalition Party (pro business/urban middleclass) went for open borders. They were then out of power for 20 years.

Sorry for so much info but thought it might be an interesting comparison and it show that family policies don't have to be a huge drain on the employer and they can be widely supported

'The 2007 Millennium Cohort Study found that children who's mums are with them for the first year are healthier, do better at school - and eventually cost the tax payer less in support while contributing more.'

I would be interested to find out if that study was adjusted for socio-economic status. Obviously familes who have more income and a higher standard of living can afford to have a parent/earner off work longer, and those same familes would have children who did better at school and needed less state support. So amount of time off work would appear to correlate with later success in life.

I took a year off and also had to save my butt off and tighten my belt to do so. I felt like it was important for my DD to be with her parents for as long as possible, but then, DH and I could afford it.

"Obviously familes who have more income and a higher standard of living can afford to have a parent/earner off work longer"

Well that's not necessarily true.

The gap between SMP and wages is much more significant for higher wage-earners, if you are below average and/or getting tax credits then SMP is a pretty good chunk of your income (SMP doesn't count as income for tax credits)

And only women earning above a certain threshold can afford to go back to work, because you have to earn a certain amount to pay for childcare.

The biggest group of SAHMs round my way are the very poor and on benefits. Most of the "professional" types had to go back to work pretty quick in fact. And those with very high-flying jobs (usually the biggest earners) went back the fastest.

And I know personal anecdotes aren't worth much, but out of my NCT group my husband and I were the lowest earners and I was the last person to go back to work.

The others were lawyers, medics or in finance (in roughly equal thirds) and all very well paid, whereas I work in arts and my husband works in academia.

But we had a flat, not a house, hence a smaller mortgage, we qualified for tax credits, and SMP + child benefit + tax credits was actually a pretty good chunk of my wage. So with that and some diligent budgeting, I managed to stay off for 14 months.

I was the ONLY person in the group to stay off for more than 9 months.

theyoungvisiter - true about high paid women. I know one investment banker who went back after 2 weeks and was on the phone to a client in the maternity suite. I think she had it C section.

She never took a day of maternity leave and booked her 2 weeks leave as a holiday which she had buoit up the previous year by not taking her holidays.

I want to move to Finland now...

Can I come too please, Feierabend?

Another woman doing patriarchy's work.

That article is shocking. Did you read the comments afterwards? A very enlightened Colin Smith says "Maternity leave should be abolished. If women choose to have children let their husbands pay. If they don't have husbands: tough. A woman employee of childbearing age is a gynecological fifth columnist programmed to wreck any company."

After reading it twice, I still seem to be scrabbling around for the writer's actual argument ... She talks about feminism being about choice but then says she can?t help wondering "whether it is up to the state to say how much time mothers should take off". As if the state does that. All the state does is enable a woman to choose to take a year off if she wants to. She also says that British women have got a great deal but then goes on about women who exercise those rights as abusing or exploiting them.

I mean, fgs, what is the point of having the rights if you are accused of abusing/exploiting them every time you use them?

Good heavens, wahwah - it just occurred to me that you may have meant that the woman in the article (ie the one who had the cheek to have two babies) was the woman doing patriarchy's work ... Say it isn't so or I shall weep!!

Oh dear, I meant the journalist!

That's what I thought - phew!

"And only women earning above a certain threshold can afford to go back to work, because you have to earn a certain amount to pay for childcare"

surely that depends very much on what their partner/husband is earning though?

Would be interested to know what that threshold is.

well what I meant is that if your wage is not a certain amount, it won't cover the childcare. So it doesn't matter what the higher wage earner is earning, if the lowest wage earner earns less than the childcare, then you lose money by having two working parents.

Having said that, some women choose to go back regardless, because their long-term career prospects are more important to them than the money. And in that scenario your husband's wage is important.

The threshold entirely depends where you live and what types of childcare you want/need.

To employ a nanny in London costs about £14 an hour gross, so about £36k a year. That means you need to earn at least £45k yourself, just to make ends meet after tax. Any less and you'll be losing money.

A nanny share will of course be less, as will childminders. Childminders vary considerably but cost between £40 and £60 per day in London. Nurseries also vary wildly, but a private nursery will cost between £60 and £75 per day for a 1 year old. So you need about £15-20,000 after tax, JUST to cover childcare.

Then of course you have to factor in the other costs of working - tax, commuting costs, lunches, work clothing etc.

Some women go back to work because working is important to them and because they like their jobs. It's not always for career reasons.

me and my DH's joint income is less that £50,000 and I intend to go back to work if I manage to have a baby. Looks like we'll be pretty broke for a few years and we would be even if I gave up work.

flyingcloud - good for you! I'm also intending to return to work after 10 weeks because I actually love what I do. I know it will probably be tough and I intend to breastfeed for at least 6 months. Well, let's see how it goes.

It's our first and I've read and heard stories about how challenging it is when you're first learning how to. I'm lucky in that I live close to where I work (about 15 mins drive).

"Some women go back to work because working is important to them and because they like their jobs. It's not always for career reasons."

Well that's what I meant really, by career prospects. I didn't mean purely financial prospects.

Having said that, it's amazing how much you DON'T want to go back when you have a tiny baby (at least for the majority of people). The urge not to hand such a tiny bundle over to someone else is incredibly primal and strong.

My job was much, much more important to me before I had children - I hung a lot more of my self-esteem on how well I did at work, and it was generally a much bigger part of who I was and how I saw myself.

I still enjoy what I do professionally and relish doing it well, but it's not the main thing in my life any more - pretty far down the list in fact.

One comment to that article by Colin Smith: 'And with seven billion on this overcrowded planet women having more than one child are just plain selfish anyway.' Yes and who is going to pay your pension Colin? Wanker.

Grrrr I am just reading the comments to that ridiculous article and they make my blood boil. So many people seem to think that '6 months is more than enough to recover from childbirth'. Childbirth, maybe, but at 5/6 months most mothers will still be dealing with sleepless nights, and bfing up to 8 times a day. It took me a whole year to recover from having DD1, fgs. And nobody seems to be thinking about the babies at all - at 5 months they are still very young and only just starting to become more independent e.g. eat solids. IMO they still need their mother at that age. Am I just old fashioned?

Thanks sunangel - I am not under any illusions that it will be easy though, but it's the norm here so I don't have a huge choice. But I love my job and any more time out than that would make it very hard for me to do it competently and for my employer to have confidence in me.

Not at all old-fashioned, Feierabend - I felt much the same way and took the full year off for DS.

I must admit though that if I was thinking about me only I might have gone back a bit sooner but I felt that it was very important for the baby that I didn't. He needed me more than I needed to go back to work iyswim.

Am due with no. 2 in February and am a little nervous I will go a bit nuts at home away from work but fully intend to take the year off again for the same reasons.

Important thing in my book is to remember that we are all different and have different needs and precisely because of that women should be given the choice to take off whatever time they need. Within reason of course and one year is well within reason.

When we have DC2 in May (fingers crossed), I hope to take 9 months maternity leave. On returning to work, nursery for the two of my children will cost me more than the amount of money I will bring home for a few months but I figure I will deserve the "me" time, which essentially is what work is.

I think the focus is too narrow for these things anyway. Having a child is much more than about that first year, and careers are much less rigid now too. I had six months off for my first and three for my second, and both times it was mostly dictated by pay, and I worked for the NHS so fairly generous maternity leave there. But as it happens I didn't want to take more time than that (indeed I would have rather taken less first time around). For our family though only the full pay or 90% pay was really doable as I am/was the higher earner, so the further flexibility wasn't terribly useful to us. dh has however used lots of parental flexibility, and over the last ten years has spent lots of time as a SAHD. He's also changed career twice, and I am on my second career too. I don't think that is that unusual either.

Also given that women can bear children from their teens to their 40's that's a long window to think about not employing them, and in general seems like cutting your nose to spite your face (unless you operate in an industry with a surfeit of suitably experienced, qualified and available people). I remember a related conversation in a previous job where my boss was deciding whether to choose an older or a younger candidate. The older candidate was 5 years off retirement, and she was a bit concerned about that, but then reflected that it was actually fairly unusual for people to stay in the same role for as long as five years, so really the issue was immaterial.