Maternity pay!

[MetallicInk]

Is anyone else shocked at how low statuary maternity pay is? After the initial 6 weeks to drop to £138 a week is a massive drop in income for us.

Having started to look into all this myself before we TTC - it is quite shocking to go from a half decent wage (which at 100% only just covers bills) to maternity pay which is approx. £138 a week, this would not even cover our mortgage (and it took us 3 years to get a deposit for a shared ownership!!!). My partner works part time and has financial responsibility for a child with his ex so his pay does not spread across our costs much. Scary to think about!
We did a gov online calculator to see if we would be entitled to any financial assistance but this came back at 0.00.
It's sad that we are financially controlled into missing out of important months and years with a baby!
Don't even get me started on the costs of childcare!! How on earth can people afford to have babies!
I honestly take my hat off to all you hard working mums and dads!

Yup, i normally work 40h a week but because my contract is only 16h i dont qualify for anything! But hey 138 a week is alot better than nothing, im just going to have to get creative with how far it stretches

Other countries get much, much less or nothing at all! In the uk you are basically paid to have ababy. This is not to be sniffed at.

Lullaby just check the calculator as I did one to check in the gov site and it was actually for the rest of the tax year which is just over a month and actually we are entitled.
I am having 6 weeks plus my annual leave of 25 days. Then we are going to do APL with DH being at home for as long as possible. He earns half what I do so we may end up with him working part time with part time childcare as the cost is mental. I can get childcare vouchers but DH would be under the minimum wage threshold if he took some too. We are wondering if we can claim any other help when he is at home with the little one.

I'm surprised at the number of people who think that our maternity benefits are shocking - I am another who thinks we do quite well in the UK! Yes, it's extremely difficult to manage on such a drop in salary but surely we make that choice and have to do our best to plan for it? During both pregnancies I have made lots of sacrifices and saved as much as possible to keep us going during maternity leave. We are not high earners by any means, have a mortgage in an expensive city and childcare to pay for but there are things that do really help. Childcare vouchers being paid for by my employer during stat pay will be great (I found this was kept quiet so look into it!), child benefit makes a difference too and I save lots on petrol while I'm not working. It's also worth looking into tax credits (I'm not sure if we will get any yet).

Actually chunderella...they don't.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/maternity-leave-paid-parental-leave-_n_2617284.html

Living in a country where paid maternity leave is not the norm, we saved....and will only be able to have one child, we can't afford more.

Genuinely not sure why this concept is so hard to get one's head around in the uk.

Of course I realise that. And you do realise that Scandinavian tax rates differ wildly for the uk?

My point is...the uk is very, very generous. And I don't get why many don't get that.

I not sure why I have to word my posts exactly to suit your liking.

Please do share exactly which countries offer so much more, I'm genuinely interested.

I read about maternity pay and I feel quite jealous! I live in a country where maternity leave is 45 days (this also includes weekends) and then it is straight back to work. Part time work is virtually non-existent and paternity leave does not exist.

50degrees i think we live in the same country - hence my perspective that people in the uk do pretty well when it comes to maternity pay.

popping back on as i just read an article that made me think of this thread. the actual magazine has a great chart from the united nations which shows benefits...the UK and australia ranked the highest. KSA, UAE the worst.

businessweekme.com/Bloomberg/newsmid/190/newsid/467