Shared parental leave - doesn't go nearly far enough

[jamtomorrow1]

I am pregnant and my husband and I are planning to make use of the shared parental leave provisions. I seem to be spending an increasing amount of time ranting about this, but I am nonplussed by the government's belief that allowing men to share the 52 weeks' leave is enough to create a situation of equality. If the mother's employer will offer enhanced maternity pay, but the father will be entitled to the statutory amount only, then it doesn't take a genius to realise that very many couples will be forced into a situation where the mother is the only one who can afford to take the time off. This struck me as contrary to the entire spirit of the legislation. I had a look at some of the relevant employment law decisions, which seem to be pervaded by terms like "the mother's special relationship with the child". How are we ever going to achieve anything like equality in opportunity to stay at home and opportunity to go back to work when there is a gender bias built into even supposedly equal-opportunities legislation?

I agree. I think the spirit of the legislation was right but without more pay for fathers, very few people will actually use the new right. I'm sure I've read that the government's admitted as much. I think they said only a teeny percentage (maybe 5% IIRC) of fathers would use the leave.

Don't employers have to offer enhanced pay to both if at all?

Most employers who offer enhanced pay only offer it for the early period of leave anyway. The mother would need to take the first chunk off to actually give birth to the baby and have a few weeks to recover. Teaching for example gives 12 weeks half pay. Assuming going on leave at 36 weeks, that is only 8 weeks after the birth. After that it is statutory pay. Unless you want women to return to work straight from the hospital I think it is only fair that they can take the first part of the leave.

Ah, I see. So only if they offered more than, say, 3 months with enhanced pay would it be likely for men to ever get it.

Hope as time goes on men might start to ask about enhanced paternity pay when they ask about other benefits...

It would be nice to have the option, though, wouldn't it? Some women might start their maternity leave at 38 weeks and then be perfectly happy to swap over to their partner being on leave four weeks after birth, which would leave six weeks of the twelve weeks' enhanced pay up for grabs. The shared parental leave scheme requires that the mother take the first two weeks of leave (four for factory workers) for physical recovery but after that it's a matter for the parents who is on leave when. I think it's a shame that the take-up is likely to be so tiny and this sort of thing won't help.

As Yonic says, it really has to be an issue that fathers are pro-active about and negotiate with their employers, if they really want parental equality.

I think I am being thick here.

So of both parents have a twelve week enhanced pay period, presumably the mother will get it initially and the father will get it if she goes back before 12 weeks, which is allowed?

I'm not sure it's as unequal in general as you think it seems.

The majority of women probably don't have very long on enhanced maternity pay. For example, despite working for a good firm I only had 6 weeks at full pay and then dropped straight down to statutory pay for the next seven and a half months of paid maternity leave.

So there's a strong argument there that if most women are getting only the 6-8 weeks of enhanced/full pay, even with families who plan to split the leave then the woman is most likely to take those first 6-8 weeks off (few weeks before birth, physical recovery, establishing feeding etc).

So by the time the husband comes to take his time off, the vast majority of families would already be in a position where the wife would be on SMP anyway - ergo the husband should be on SMP too.

You also have to compare the different maternity packets of the two employers. The husband shouldn't get more money from his employer just because the wife would get more money from her employer, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure I quite agree that if, say, the woman was entitled to 2 months enhanced pay and then 7 months SMP, if her husband took over from her when the baby was 6 months old, he shouldn't then get his firm's 2 months enhanced pay as well. To me it's more that it should be viewed as a family unit: a few weeks/months at the beginning on enhanced pay, followed by a period on SMP, regardless of which parent is taking the time off.

So - If the mother's employer will offer enhanced maternity pay, but the father will be entitled to the statutory amount only, then it doesn't take a genius to realise that very many couples will be forced into a situation where the mother is the only one who can afford to take the time off. That's actually not got very much at all to do with women's employers v men's employers, that's just the different maternity policies of two different employers.

A parent of either sex should be entitled to the same maternity package. That's a good move forward. But it shouldn't create a position where a couple are able to essentially wangle more money because they take what is viewed as 2 separate periods of maternity leave, including 2 separate periods of enhanced pay, as this discriminates against people who aren't in a relationship.

I completely agree there is still an inequality there, particularly in terms of how many men's employers will view requests for extended paternity leave in terms of them as a good employer. But I think this is a good first step.

There needsto be provision for both parents to take time off at the same time. Especially in those first few weeks. This may mean losing time at the end of the leave period. At present men can request 2 weeks on no pay. My dh was lucky enough to get full pay for two weeks but that was it. Not nearly long enough.

It's two weeks on c£120 per week, isn't it?

Agree it would be Better if it was two weeks at 90%

Im not sure this is something that government can influence tbh. Most women are on SMP only. Enhanced maternity pay isn't as common outside the public sector.

For example, I took the first 6 months off when ds2 was born. I get NHS enhanced mat pay for 6 months. After 6 months, I returned to work and dh took 6 months off - 3 on SMP and 3 unpaid.

He was in exactly the same position as women in his workplace who get SMP only.

Hopefully employers will start offering enhanced paternity pay for the same reasons as they currently offer enhanced maternity pay. Women are often the higher earners in a partnership and sharing leave can often help maximise family income as well as normalise shared parenting. Hopefully as more men share leave it will become more common and gradually change the perceived "norms" re: parenting roles.

I think the main problem is that companies (especially ones with a macho mostly male culture) will make it clear that it will be "frowned" upon if men take leave. I genuinely think it should be mandatory for a small time at least for both parents, it's the only way men will take leave and the only way we'll have equality in hiring.

TBF, it's "frowned upon" for women to take leave too; it's only by it being taken that it's become normalised, IYSWIM.

Most company policies will still be on the old rules though won't they? So fathers can only take leave after the baby is 20 weeks old until next April - most employer policies don't cover that much, and very few beyond 26 weeks of leave (ie not baby being 26 weeks old).

It will be interesting to see what happens when companies update their policies, and when they are challenged after next April.

Maybe in certain sectors yonic, for me it was expected I would take maternity leave, and if anything they assumed I wouldn't come back. I think the assumption is still for many women that they will take leave and if anything they just won't go back. I think companies think men will go back because they don't "need" to take time off and it's "what men do" so taking more time off "than necessary" is just taking the piss especially while women can already be home with the baby. I really do believe until it is legally expected social pressure will keep most men from taking time off.

Dh was told he could wait till after the new baby (months away) at a new job because they thought the might take 2 weeks off. He wouldn't have even qualified for PL at that point. He basically had to promise he would take more than a max of a couple days off (as holiday) to get the job.

I think you should count yourselves lucky that either of you get enhanced leave. Obviously it would be unfair if you had the same employer and different conditions, but I am assuming that isn't the case?

Jassy - Company policies are somewhat irrelevant here - the law changed in 2012 (I think) so that parental leave may be shared after the first 6 weeks.

I shared leave with DH after DD's arrival. Since I returned to work I have seen my role reduced and my commitment questioned, and comments made about how the project suffered without a project leader. When my DH returned after a similar period of leave, he was given a pay rise and a promotion as they had realised how important he was to the company's function...

I don't think the law is the primary problem any more - it's people's attitudes.

There is no legal entitlement to paid parental leave here in the States. Four or five states do offer paid maternity leave, and some individual organizations and companies do, but otherwise it's all unpaid.

Mothers and fathers are entitled to 12 weeks unpaid, both for births and adoptions.

DH wasn't able to take advantage of this however, as he hadn't worked at his firm for 12 months, so he got one day off after Elisabeth (DD3) was born.

However, fortunately for us, DH's firm are quite family-friendly (for a US firm anyway) and now he's been in employment for a year, they've offered him the opportunity to take four weeks unpaid leave. They didn't have to do it, but I know they're already keen for DH to commit permanently to the position after his initial two year secondment from the London office, so we know that's why they've done it. (No need to tell them just yet, that we already know we'll be staying)! That leave started this week.

We're just fortunate that we're in a position where DH can take four weeks unpaid.

Paid parental leave is something we took for granted when we still lived in the UK!

Assuming you're in the UK, Very, that's incorrect. The law changed in April 2011 to allow fathers to take additional leave after the baby is 20 weeks old. My husband and I took advantage of this and he was paid remaining the SMP I did not take from the time my baby was 26 weeks old. Crucially, the 2011 rules don't allow for leave to be taken concurrently (including annual leave the mother took before returning to work) but the ability of fathers to claim state parental pay is no different to mothers from the 20 week point. So yes, differentiation now is entirely down to company policies.

The new, shared after 6 weeks rules don't take effect until April 2015, where both parents will be entitled to the same statutory pay.

Given the OP was in large part about equivalency of pay enhancements, and the new system has yet to be introduced and therefore tested, the way company policies are going to address equivalency for shared parental leave is pretty crucial.

Company policies for enhanced pay that go as far as 20 weeks post-birth (which for most will be later than 20 weeks after the start of ML) are pretty rare, so most men wouldn't be captured by them currently, and if they were it would be for a matter of a couple of weeks tops. That will change next April.

I agree that attitudes are a huge problem. Unfortunately my husband's experience was not as positive as your husband's.

I see the point about if parental leave is additional then it gives couples an advantage over single parents (though presumably they also have the advantage of two salaries). However I feel that you could find a way of addressing this separately.

I think parental leave should be additional to maternity leave because I don't think that extra benefits for men should come at the expense of women's hard earned benefits. I think men should have a separate entitlement, which would allow both parents to be off at times if they both wished to. It would mean that women couldn't be put in a position where she feels she has to return to work just because her partner values time with his young baby too.

I'm currently a SAHP, my DH took 1 week off at full (ish?) pay courtesy of a scheme by his employer, 1 week at the statutory rate and 2 weeks of annual leave when our son was born. This time was so valuable to us and really gave him a chance to bond with our baby and support me. He felt it was too soon to go back to work, despite having more time than many men. Sharing my entitlement to maternity leave (i.e. none) wouldn't have helped us. But he is an employee who should be just as able to build up entitlement to leave.

I'd support an increase to paternity leave rather than a sharing of maternity leave (with extra support for single parents if that is required).

I agree that statutory pay for men should increase and be available simultaneously, at least for first few weeks.

What I think will be interesting however is to see how firms who provide enhanced pay for women will respond to new laws. So, the company I used to work for have six months full pay. I am very interested to see if in time they allow men who take over their wife's entitlement to get the same enhancement. If so, at that point, we might see some situTions where it makes more sense for the men to take the leave if his dp works for a less generous company.

This will be very interesting and will probably throw up all kinds of new issues.

Surely it would be discrimination not to offer the same leave benefits to a father switching to be the parent on leave at 8 weeks as the company in question would offer a woman taking maternity leave at that point.

The problem will probably come where a company offers great benefits. That company will probably find that mothers and fathers take leave from them at the enhanced rate in preference to their partner taking leave paid only at the statutory level from a less generous employer. It will then become a race to the bottom to avoid being the employer with the parent taking leave.

I think that more concurrent leave would be very useful. I was pretty ill after DD was born and DH's employers were really good about him taking more than 2 weeks. I can't remember if it was holiday or unpaid, but they had no notice of it. I certainly couldn't have coped with him going back to work after 2 weeks of paternity leave.