UK maternity policy feels inadequate

[Bunny44]

I wanted to see how people manage in similar situations. I'm only going to receive statutary maternity leave, which I have to take from my estimated due date, so this is 6 weeks at 90% pay, then £726 per month there on.

I am a single parent (through being left while pregnant), I'm on a reasonablly high salary and have a mortgage, but I live in London so obviously costs are also high. The nurseries near me only take babies from 6 months, so I'm looking at potentially having 5 months of living off £726, which is half of my mortgage cost, let alone bills etc.

I'm trying my best to save as much as possible now and even taking on extra work, but I'm also aware that when I go back to work, nursery will cost £2000 a month so I need to keep back some of these saving as covering this is all going to be very tight.

I feel a bit aggreived as having spoken to most of my friends, nearly all of them, except a couple of self-employed ones, receive enhanced maternity leave at 26 weeks at full pay at least. My company (SMB in a male-dominated industry) told me before joining that they were introduced enhanced maternity leave, but then after joining said it's only for 12 weeks and you have to have been at the company for 2 years to qualify, so I didn't make this threshold.

I don't qualify for any extra government help, despite my income falling way behind what you would need to live off in the UK per month. It seems unreasonable I've been working and paying NI since I was 14 (I'm 35 now) and pay considerable taxes now and then when I actually need support it is not available. Also stautary maternity pay is just not enough when the woman is the only or main earner. You need at least 6 weeks, if not much more, to just physically recover. You could say I should find a company that has a better parental policy before getting pregnant, but it's really awkward asking in interviews and in my industry it doesn't seem to be well catered in this regard (and they complain that there are not enough women!)

I'm surprised about quite how difficult it is, and as metioned financially I have been in a pretty good position - how on earth do others manage if they are the only earner and don't get enhanced parental leave?

Just trust me when I say there's no chance of any money from the father :-).

Yes I'm looking into the paying extra into my pension option, but then I'm weighing that up with needing the money to pay for everything if you see what I mean.

I'll look into childminders as an alternative - didn't realise they could be that much cheaper!

And I was in a similar situation.. went back to work after 8 weeks as I am self employed, and my DH, who was going to be the SAHP parent, was made redundant 3 weeks before the birth, so no shared parental payment for us. But of course we had the benefit of no childcare costs for the first 18 months.

I don't think the maternity policies here are the issue, more the difficulty with getting reasonably priced childcare.

OP, don't forget that you accrue your usual holiday all the way through your maternity leave. Could you maybe use that to start back (e.g.) 4 days a week, taking a day's holiday every week, for a while to keep nursery costs down?

And please don't leave it too late to book a nursery place, or you may find yourself without any childcare options.

Best of luck to you, it sounds like you have been left in a tricky situation.

I thought the threshold for savings for UC was £7000?

Modern cost of living requires a 2 parent 2 income family unfortunately

SMP is ridiculous for working women I agree - an insult really but it is still one of the better policies in the world

That being said you are presumably choosing to continue with a pregnancy solo and choosing to continue to live in a very expensive area etc - many nurseries and childminders do take babies from as young as 6 weeks and are much cheaper than the £2k you have been quoted

Agree I only had two week's maternity as couldnt afford to take leave basically surviving on 2 hour sleep to keep the lights on and look at my 10 week old

It's pretty easy to look it up online. £16,000 is the cut off. Anything above £6,000 gradually reduces the amount you get, but you can still claim.

This is exactly what I'm trying to say - I feel like our system doesn't encourage working women, it penalises them. There are people here saying we're asking for too much and being scroungers for essentially asking for adequate maternity leave, but it's actually in the country's interest.

Also those saying being a parent is a choice and should be on the shoulders of the parent, it's been flagged that our birth rate is falling dramatically and this is an issue too because we need future workers to be paying taxes to support our aging population.

Not everyone has the luxury of 2 incomes unfortunately.

I have a mortgage so it's not so easy or practical to move - to sell is taking people 6 months round here at least. Also moving out would mean additional commuting costs once I go back to work.

I am 6 months pregnant with a healthy and moving baby so I find it a bit strange that you're suggesting I consider having an abortion!!

I am sorry that you will struggle, and that your partner has taken off. But I disagree. I don't know where you think "the country" will get the money to subsidise your maternity leave and childcare, because "the country" is me and you (and everyone else paying tax) and you make the point eloquently - none of us can afford living / energy / whatever at the moment, so having a baby doesn't put you in a special category that entitles you to live better because of that choice / set of circumstances. The father may have taken off, but this is equally his responsibility here - his child, his cost.

In principle I think everyone would agree that maternity / childcare provisions are inadequate, but to make them adequate will take a fundamental shift in the way the economy is managed, social/ political attitudes, and social change. It isn't something that can happen simply by throwing money (we don't have) at it.

It's not that close, but the rental income would be significant - prob over £3000 a month, but I'd pay 40% tax on it, which means it ony covers the mortgage and cost, and would at the very least take me close to the £100k mark net which would disqualify me from the free nursery hours. If you see what I mean it doesn't work out very well even though it sounds like a lot.

OP I totally understand the panic. I ended up really unwell when pregnant and ended up out of work on government sick pay which messed up our budget. Can you take a mortgage break for a little bit ? That's what we did and it gave us a breather. Also you will just have to accept going back to work earlier than planned which lots of people do and have done .

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Well exactly. We’ll get the ‘unplanned pregnancy’ argument in a moment, but contraception is 99-100% effective and also free, so really they should be much rarer than they are. I mean there’s only so much that can be supported and mitigated and funded by the government before you have to take responsibility for your own life, surely?

UK maternity policy is inadequate and will remain so until there's a population crisis and the govt realises that women need more babies to provide the next cohort of taxpayers.
I give it another 10 years or so.

I have family is Canada , USA Cyprus , Spain , Portugal , France , Germany , Netherlands and a few African countries ( I’m leaving those aside ) . The U.K. is the worst of the western countries above apart from the USA . I do not call that generous .
I call my own contract generous where I have 37 weeks full pay plus can use my holiday after . Anything else is far from generous

Do you understand the concept of those children paying tax so you can retire ?

I say this as a woman who has had two SMP only maternity leaves: it is unreasonable to expect all tax payers, including the childless, to cover all of the costs associated with having children which is, at the end of the day, a choice.

I only get statutory, regardless of length of service. Many of my friends don’t understand why I can’t afford baby groups as they all have at least 6 month of occupational pay (not necessarily 100% but enough to pay their bills). I wrote a letter to my employer saying that we wouldn’t be able to pay our mortgage and some colleagues (in specialist roles) do get enhanced pay so could it be considered. I got a flat no. So how will we cope? Mortgage holidays and our overdraft.

Sorry you're facing this! I have a partner but am the main earner, and I've had very similar worries! When are you due? I believe we get 30 hours free nursery from nine months of age from September 2024 so something to factor in future planning.

Try the turn to us benefits calculator, you are still allowed universal credit if your savings are below £15,000.
If your savings are above £15k you will be able to get universal credit when they run out.

My understanding is we still are allowed the weekly child benefit payment during maternity leave even if your salaried earnings when working are over the threshold.

You can also get child maintenance payments from your partner.

Some other tips that I've explored;

• put mortgage on interest only for the mat leave period
• pre pay council tax and utilities for a year to reduce savings balance / take monthly worth away
• take out new 0% on purchases credit card to rely on for expenditure and be mindful to only accumulate debt you can easily repay when working again

Hope this helps!

Claim children benefit because it gives you NI credits until you child is 12.
You then pay it back via your tax code.
Just up in case you have to stop working for or suffer a cut in come, for any reason.

So I think they should consider mandating that companies pay 90% of wages for a more reasonable length of time - 6 weeks is one of the shortest in Europe and doesn't even allow the woman to physically recover.

the suggestion is that companies are mandated to provide better parental leave.

And what about those mums that don't work for companies? E.g. nurses, teachers etc.

It sucks, we struggled through and our DD is now at school and love her to bits, will always be a Bir sad we can afford to give her a sibling but the thought of SMP whilst juggling the extra costs we now have for DD , well it just wouldn't work. And don't get me started on nursery fees.

Around £2k is pretty standard for my bit of outer London for under 2s.

TFC brings it down a bit (but not the full 20% as the total saving is capped - it's more like a 10% reduction) and then the funded hours make a huge difference. But the first few years are a massive financial slog.

This! And that also applies to companies - why should they have to shell out more because someone chooses to have a baby? They'll just stop employing women of childbearing age.