Maternity leave/pay proposals from think-tank Reform: what do you think?

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Earlier this week we got invited along to the launch of a report by Reform about maternity/paternity pay and leave.

The gist of its proposals are:

• Change current maternity pay to parental pay

• Abolish salary-related element of maternity pay and pay it at a flat rate (£5,000) for all parents

• Stop making the pay dependent on amount of time taken off work

You can read the full report here.

The report's authors are keen to get a debate going and will be following this thread to hear your reactions, comments and ideas.

Thanks,
MNHQ

bumpersluscious in reply to your q - the 6 weeks at 90% is currently a statutory requirement paid for by the government. The proposal is to abolish that and effectively average out what is currently paid across the whole population

rhian I appreciate your point that it's not completely impossible for some women to work and exclusively bf, but it is very difficult for most and impossible for many - if you have only 6 months mat leave, you will realistically be taking a min of 2 or 3 weeks before the birth - possibly much more if you are unwell or if your baby is late. So you're returning when your baby is 5 months.

Many women can't express (physically) or else don't have the facilities at work to express and/or store the milk safely.

Even when employers are sympathetic and a woman finds expressing physically possible, expressing for a fully bf baby who is not yet on solids is a very time consuming business and when you have just returned to work after a lengthy break I personally felt I needed to be present as much as possible and having meetings to re-establish links with contacts and clients. I was out of the office much of the time, and returning to my office every 3-4 hours to express for half an hour or so simply wouldn't have been possible.

Many babies won't take a bottle - mine never did.

I am 100% sure that a 6 month mat leave would result in many fewer babies reaching 6 months on breast milk alone.

Oh, I hadn't read Elizabeth's responses to some of the points made

but to expand on the last point she made
"No other benefit is income related any more - I am interested in knowing why people think maternity leave should be"

working and child tax credits are certainly income based,. and as the whole purpose of your report is to address issiues with maternity pay and people taking time off work to have their children, then making it income realted is a no brainer imo.

ooops, my spelling is atrocious

I also agree, from an employer's perspective, popping in and out of work whenever you felt like it over a year would not work at all.

From an employer's perspective, I have to hire maternity cover when someone goes on maternity leave. I can't then ask that person to go off when the person on maternity leave wants to pop back for a month. I need a start and a prospective end date (though I recognise that you can't ask exactly when the person is coming back).

If the person then popped back for a month, I guess the employer would be expected to pay the salary plus the salary of the person covering their job.

I also think, no matter what you say about breastfeeding, returning to work is a financial issue.

If you have to return to work for money, you end up doing so whenever makes the most financial sense.

sorry = poss being dense here but working tax credit is not income based, is it?

I mean it's inversely income based, as in the less you earn the more you get.

It's not proportionally income based, as in the more you earn the more you get, which is the situation with maternity leave and (I think) what Elizabeth was querying...?

Or am I misunderstanding what you were trying to say?

no tyv, I was being dense!

sorry my post was to lacakadaisycal

maternity pay is different though isn't it

it's acknowledging you have a job (or have had one) and recognising that it will still be there when you come back.

e.g. a SAHM does not get statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance (unless they were working at some point over the prior year I believe)

Therefore, it is a benefit entirely related to someone working and it is linked in to your employment so I cannot see how it couldn't be earnings related.

I think taking away the link between maternity pay and someone's work is storing up problems for the future tbh (going down a slippery slope where you don't retain your benefits).

sorry lackadaisycal - x-posted - I am on a rubbishly slow connection today for some reason!

tyv - it is inversely related, but there is still a link. The implicit assumption is that over a certain income threshold WTC are not required, the same people who are just over that cusp are going to lose some statutory maternity benefit should these proposals come to pass.
Is always seems to be this middle point that gets hit hardest - you earn to much to get anything but it's assumed you can soak up losses on the other hand.

foxinsocks has expressed what I was trying to say in a much better way than me!

I can see the arguement for a flat rate, but £5000 is low. A flat rate linked to earnings would be better, but obv. expensive. Why not the current total amount of entitlement paid regardless of how much time you take off.

I think that women need to be able to take off a year. I went back after 9 months and that was perfect for me. Allowing flexibilty for the last 6 months surely allows families to decide what is best for them. Saying women can only have 6 months and thats ok because men can also take off 6 months either at the same time or after has a few major problems

1. What about single mothers? There children only get a stay at home parent for the first 6months but children of couples get a parent for a year - not far
2. Breastfeeding, women will be forced back before 6 months and while it is recommended exclusive bf for first 6 months it does take a few more months to wean a child so bf is important for longer than 6 months
3. It is unlikely that both parents would be able to afford to take time off, as the allowence isn't dependent on time off, v. unlikely that many men will be prepared to take the career break.

I confess to not having read the thread, I will do when I get home and have a bit more time, but my concern with the idea of parental leave, as opposed to maternity leave, is that we know there are some companies who make it damned difficult for women to take a decent maternity leave. What will stop them putting their foot down after the six months and demanding that the father takes 6 months, which is quite likely not what either parent wants to do. DH would rather have hacked off a limb than stay at home with dd for more than about two days. Besides, if DH had taken a cut in salary during that that time we'd have been buggered.

Also, where TF are they getting the idea that 6 months is 'optimum'? Optimum for whom? I was nowhere ready to return to work after 6 months and have struggled with a year.

Leningrad, I honestly hadn't considered those other aspects of being employed!

The monetary aspects aside, my job isn't one that can be done flexibly or part time/job share so that was a major consideration in my decision not to go back at all. I could have gone back at a much lower grade, but then that would have added to the childcare conundrum.

Although some jobs do not lend themselves to flexibility, I think the point posted on our site about the report is interesting - there can be a mind-shift about the way parents work.

www.reform.co.uk/Research/Economy/EconomyArticles/tabid/81/smid/378/ArticleID/847/re ftab/70/t/Productive%20parents/Default.aspx

Ok I havn't read the whole thread but will do so.

One of the issues (I gather) about mat leave is that it punishes womens careers by keeping them out of the workplace (I agree with this) I'm not sure that punishing both parents by keeping the father out of the workplace will actually even things up, surely there are more than enough childless people or parents with older children in most workplaces that you will simply end up wiht families even worse off?

Just a thought

(Although personally I've never been hugely in favour of equalising fathers rights to parental leave sorry)

Oh read a bit more dc1 was in hospital for first 4.5 months, 6 would certainly not have been optimal for me

lenin I think paying rellies to care for their own children is a bit of a slippery slope tbh, I gather the argument is that curent deductable childcare is subject to rules/regulations/inspections etc whereas children being looked after by a parent generally aren't

something about this makes me uncomfortable with a flat rate (although I suspect I may be better off with it) I shall have to try and work out why (read the rest of the thread and pinch someone elses ideas )

liztickle regarding the comment post on your site that you link to - well obviously it would be nice if there were a mind-shift on flexibility, but you only have to read the multiple posts on this forum about the massive resistance to flexible working legislation to realise that that mindshift has not yet taken place.

Any reforms have to be drafted with the existing labour market in mind - not with some blue-skies idea of how we would do it in an ideal world where all employers embraced parents flitting in and out at odd hours.

Also I take issue with your contributer's comment: "However, I do feel that your ideas are formed from a perception that the parents would want to work for a company that wouldn't give this kind of flexibility."

Unfortunately we DO already work for these companies, mostly, and pregnancy and maternity leave is the one time you really can't change your employer or risk losing substantial benefits.

Unfortunately, most of us choose jobs based on necessity and pragmatism, and those of us who do choose jobs with "family-friendly" policies pre-family, often find that post-family, when we actually want to take up those options, the lovely mission statements have a very different interpretation on the ground.

Rhian you said further down that you would have liked the chance to swap roles. So why didn't you? I was a SAHM with a DH who worked silly hours and I couldn't stand it. So he took a night job for fewer hours and I went out to work PT. We both got equal time with the children.

Elizabeth you didn't pick up on the real world view of "flexibility" which expects an employee to be available at a moments notice.

I was lucky to get 6 months on full pay then 13 wks on SMP but worked right up to the last minute. By law you get 2 weeks compulsory Mat Leave after the birth. Shouldn't this be extended for CS? A colleague has had a hysterectomy and got 6 wks sick leave..