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?

Could you consider condensing your hours on return? Eg do 5 days in 4, to save one day of childcare? I’m in London too and childcare costs are just crippling with less help available due to higher salaries pushing people over thresholds (which I don’t feel cover the higher costs of living here)! Hopefully you will be eligible earlier for the 30 hours as they bring that in for below 3 year olds

Apart from Covid this is the same in the organisations I've worked for.

Interestingly during Covid it was acceptable for my male colleagues with small children to work during the night while dozing during the day. However they made it crystal clear they weren't working and looking after children.

Oh and if you can WFH if your child is a good sleeper - mine was from 11 months to 2.5 years - you can do a few hours when they are asleep.

ok good to know

I can WFH with my child at home for emergencies/unforeseen circumstances but it's part of our hybrid policy that we have to arrange adequate childcare during our working hours. They're flex on school holidays, it's fine to have the kids around there.

I think this would be really helpful as I found my current company quite misleading - they actually stated they offered enhanced parental leave but actually this was just for men!

I agree that the amount on 90% pay is too short. Especially if you get signed off at 36 weeks - you could end up with just 2 weeks after the baby is born. And possibly the amount unpaid is quite long in that some women end up 13 months out of the workplace.

I would say you're not wrong.

BUT.

Forecast for the UK in 2023/24 is £1189bn tax spending but only £1058bn tax income.

Only 5 years since 1971 have been "surplus". Rest are deficit years. We have one of the highest net debt as a % of income in the industrial world.

What are you going to cut to pay for your additional mat leave? Or who are you going to tax?

Totally agree and sympathise with you. I’m a fairly high earner and the breadwinner and maternity leave was difficult financially as like you, we had to save a considerable amount to cover the lack of my salary during maternity leave as even with my husband earning, we couldn’t afford all the bills on his salary alone. Unfortunately I think this is just want the government expects you to do! We won’t be having any more children for that reason as we couldn’t afford to save that much again. It’s no wonder the birth rate is dwindling!

Definitely worth raising it with your employer. I also know people who haven’t worked the required amount but have been successful in getting their employer to agree to it if they want to retain you post maternity. Hope you manage to find a reasonably priced childminder or nursery. At least there should be some additional help toward childcare in the future.

You stated in an earlier post that your company already offers enhanced maternity pay to eligible employees, which is also over statutory.

So you saying companies should be mandated to provide better parental leave - great, what about those that don't work for companies?

I don't disagree that the current provision is inadequate, just don't think limiting the scope to just companies is any more adequate either.

Think I responded to some similar suggestions before:

Lodger: not possible as I don't have a spare room
KIT days: good to know - my workplace didn't say these were paid
Time off: I only want to/can only take take the minimum, so was planning on 6 months. A year is something people do when they have a better policy and/or a partner earning. I never had this expectation.
Living on that budget: actually wouldn't be possible - only just covers my mortgage, bills and food just about. I'm saving about 30% of my income per month currently and that should be doable. My average income during maternity leave if I take 6 months off works out as a 65% reduction per month.
ex partner: not in the country and no way of chasing him for money + doesn't earn much anyway. He has said he'll contribute but I think it'll not be a lot and can't rely on this. Our plan originally was that he would stay at home with the baby and I'd go back after 4 months.

How many months are you planning on "pre" saving for going back to work? Surely 3 months max is sufficent, then you pay it out of your salary once back working?

Try a childminder they often have children from just a few weeks old.

I'm not sure if I follow? My plan was to save enough to top up 5 months on statutary maternity leave and then a bit extra to fall back on once back at work since it'll be really tight once paying full time nursery, to cover unexpected costs etc. I've been aiming to save 35% of my take home now for 6 months then this is possible, but it's not possible to save this much every month. I'm also Air bnbing my house and a few extra things, like selling stuff I don't need etc.

Uk has a little bit of maternity pay for up to 9 months.
some other countries pay more per week but for a shorter period.
If you go back at 4/5/6 months because you can’t afford to live, the government effectively saves the final 3/4/5 months. So it would be good if you can choose what works for you.

Do you know many other mothers or mothers to be, OP?

I know a few women who combined childcare - so eg hiring a nanny to look after two babies at a time. Or the mothers looked after each other's children when they did shift work. Might not be practical for tiny babies but good from a yearish upwards.

If you know other women having a solo pregnancy, they might be good relationships to invest in - both for moral support and the possibility of helping each other out in times of sickness etc.

I completely agree with OP, statutory maternity pay is joke in UK. I remember struggling when having my girls over decade ago in London and there were 2 of us working ...plus you don't get any benefits if you both work full time or one on good salary plus owner of property. Then we moved up north things got way easier, now in third pregnancy and I get that enhanced pay for 13 weeks in full, but to be fair I find SMP and different rules made by different companies, positions very divisive and unfair. Some of you are saying UK is generous, let me tell you it's not, I'm originally from Poland and women there get 80%of their wages for 12 months. Just please save your opinions that I should go back to Poland then, my partner is from here, kids don't even speak my language. I made my decision to live here but it doesn't change fact that that UK government sucks only helping those who choose not to work, others have it uphill.

Hi, not sure if this has been mentioned but you can also set up a childcare tax free account, here is the link, there is a certain criteria but you can get up to £2000 a year towards childcare fees.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare

Yes well aware of that huge debt which former generations saddled us with...

From my perspective I've been paying tax and NI for 20 years, I've been a higher rate tax payer for 10 years. You make it sound like I'm wanting to freeload unfairly, but situations like mine are where we're contributing very significantly all of our lives, but then told we're on our own on the odd occassions we get into difficulty and need support. I was talking about extending maternity leave pay by 4 to 6 weeks to take the burden off struggling working parents. This is a drop in the ocean compared to the time working parents contribute into the economy, but could make a huge difference to working families when they need it most. I thought the purpose of paying NI was to support us when we can't work?

I happily pay my taxes BTW hoping that it provides society in general with the social security it needs.

I'm not sure why we couldn't choose to have the same amount in a condensed amount rather than spread it out? It might make more women go back to work quicker and that way pay more taxes/contribute more.

I totally agree that all employers should have to disclose all the details of their maternity and parental leave policies as standard when recruiting so that no interview candidate or new employee eve has to ask.

And I agree that the UK maternity leave policy leaves a lot to be desired.

However, OP's main problem is having a lifestyle, mortgage and expenses that take an income of circa £100,000 pa to support, and is finding the existing maternity pay system inadequate because of having to live on a total of only £65,000ish across 12 months (6 months of which on normal salary and 6 months with the existing SMP system). And I totally agree that this is going to be difficult for her and sympathise. And employers who value their highly talented and high-salaried staff should definitely offer more by way of decent maternity pay if they want to recruit and retain the best - and that's fine because it's not tax payer money. But if extra tax payer money is going to be put into the maternity pay system, I really want it to go into increasing the £172.48pw that everyone gets after 6 weeks - really it should be more like £400pw which is closer to a full time week at minimum wage, so I don't support increasing the 6 weeks at 90% that is subsidised by the tax payer, because that money goes disproportionately to the wealthy, rather than to the poor.

You're making a lot of assumptions here. I don't earn around £100k - much lower than that. I said that if I rented out my house, then that may put my taxable income at around that figure due to the high rents and mortgages in London.

I don't have a fancy lifestyle - I have an adequate income to cover a mortgage, bills, public transport around London and the usual things. I don't have a car and get around by bike or bus. I don't have expensive clothes etc.

The point of this post was to highlight that the UK's maternity policy + childcare costs puts working mums (single or not) in a very tight spot financially and even if you are on a decent salary and even if you have been carefully saving, you can find yourself wondering how you're going to manage.

Regarding extending the 6 weeks, people would get back a proportionate amount to what they pay in usually, so it's actually quite fair. It's not to do with wealthy or not either, it's to do with how much the woman is actively earning and so directly proportional to how much tax they are contributing.

Could you negotiate with your employer? My friend works somewhere that had a super shit mat policy but she was the first to be pregnant there and they ended up changing their policy for her. You could phrase it as a benchmarking exercise and compare to competitors to talent and link it to any goals for more females in the industry? Also push for better pat leave at the same time so that male employees see the advantage for them. Worth a shot as the only way you might get more money! Agree that SMP is really bad. I get 26 weeks enhanced.

They already said they benchmarked it with the new policy, but I find it hard to believe as I've yet to come across someone else working for a private company who only has SMP

@Bunny44 your company provides enhanced pay, but you haven't been there long enough. Not that 3 months full pay is that great but still from company point of view they do their bit. Only government can end this unfair maternity discrimination ....'oh look at me I have an important job and well deserved maternity mackage the rest of you plebs are not worthy ' I'm sorry but that's how it feels at the moment.

Hi @Bunny44 just to check you have looked into child benefit? The threshold is around £50k (can’t remember exactly) but that’s in a tax year, so you may be under that for one tax year when you’re not working and entitled to some?

Also it’s not a help immediately but the recent childcare changes proposed by the government offer some free hours for 1 year olds from September 2024 (assuming nurseries can afford to provide these hours…)