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?

Sorry but I am confused. My employer offers 6m full pay and then statutory. Let's assume DP's employer offers same (maternity) package. If I take 3m off full pay can he (under the new shared leave regs)

• take the same 3m as me off full pay?
• take only the next 3m off full pay?
• or does he get stat only?

Also it obviously will make a difference who earns more - if your DPearns more you might not survive with him on stat pay on leave and you on full pay in work ??
And I imagine for most couples the man earns more

I'm talking about new regs in 2015 that allow you to split the leave

Yup.

And those employers that offer enhanced maternity pay currently do so as it's a good way to attract and retain talent; no need to assume it will be a race to the bottom now a few men will also take it up.

Of course, fewer companies may offer enhancement over all as economic times get tougher.

Before shared leave the situation was that a higher earning female partner often had no choice but return to work and put her baby into childcare earlier than she would like.

Especially with first children, more women than people realise earn more than their partners.

The new system isn't perfect, but neither was the status quo.

Certainly in dh's work there has been a slew of parental leave requests since shared leave became available. He works in a low pay job and many of his colleagues have higher earning partners.

Dh has also cut his hours for childcare reasons and again, many of his male colleagues also work shifts around childcare commitments.

It will be interesting to see whether taking leave increases the number of men going pt, and eventually may help with the gender pay gap.

It's not all plain sailing, dh's employer refused to confirm his leave until less than a week before I was due back at work, but my understanding is that it's been easier for men at his work who have taken it since.

I think a lot of companies currently offering enhanced maternity pay will end up reducing or removing it rather than offering the same to new fathers. For example, where I work I was lucky enough to have 16wks on full pay. 90 odd percent of the workforce is male, though, so the company I work for have been able to offer this without it costing them a great deal. I fully expect that as soon as new fathers ask HR why they aren't being offered the same deal everyone will just be on SMP.

Sleepless. I think most of those men would end up taking 4 weeks max.

Ugh I think pp are right in saying employers would just reduce the length of the enhanced pay period rather than have loads of men off for months and months on full pay.. Argh. One step forward two back ! Or hopefully two forward one back ? If it becomes normal for men to split the leave...

Btw I work for private sector (finance) and my company offer 6 months full pay

Where I used to work it was 9 months full pay, which sounds nice but it actually trapped me into taking more leave than I wanted, as I would have been worse off back at work with childcare costs than on mat leave. I expect that sort of arrangement will die the death with these changes

I hear you sleepless. I don't want to take more than 3m. But if DP cannot use the second 3m at full pay I may as well take the full 6..

Madame, if you get 6m at full pay and your DH does too then you should be ok
To take 3m, I think!

I don't know if he will though? Under the new shared leave thing does that mean if his firm offers 6m full pay to women on maternity that he could take half of it?

I suspect it'll take a court case to make companies offer men enhanced paternity leave.

I work in the NHS (8 weeks full pay, up to the 26 week mark at half pay and then 12 weeks SMP) and haven't heard anything about them rolling it out to cover fathers.

Yes, I think so, after April 2015z

m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29682649

It'll have affected people before now though.

If my & dh's employers had been reversed and I'd been the higher earner but on SMP only then it'd have been in our interests for me to have gone back as soon as dh could take leave, ie 20 weeks.

If dh had rights to the equivalent of NHS enhanced pay then he'd have had another 2 months on half pay before moving on to SMP (ds2 was born the day before my mat leave started). As far as I'm aware, working for the NHS he would actually have been on SMP for the whole period.

Obviously it will affect far more families from next year, but some people with female partners on SMP and partners working in firms that offer enhanced packages will have been worse off as things stand.

Xpost. Presumably the rest of the public sector will follow suit.

That's interesting that it doesn't appear to be considered discrimination though.

Surely it's a form of equal pay discrimination?