Should the father's employer contribute half of any maternity pay?

[AyeAmarok]

Would this work? ls it "fair" that it's the woman's employer who has to take all the financial hit, when it's both parents who chose to have the baby? (meaning they are more likely to be wary of hiring or promoting women).

Making the man's employer contribute as well, could that go some way towards making it equally as "risky" to hire men as women and then it would be less likely to mean that women of childbearing age are discriminated against.

The sharing of the maternity/paternity leave goes some way to address this, but the take-up is still really low, and the pay isn't actually equal so the financial consequences are still not equal on the man and women's employer.

I'm thinking this through in my head and thought I'd float it out on this board and see what you thought? I know there are loads of potential issues that I haven't thought of, probably some really obvious ones!

But could this be a way of stopping women being so unfairly treated when it comes to having a family?

(happy to be told it's a terrible idea!)

Yes it was a survey I remember reading, can't find it at the moment but it did say about which employers had the most generous maternity packages, and I couldn't help but notice how few women were employed in the 'good' ones.

Re the public sector, yes the public sector is also good, and quite female dominated. Although thinking about it in my cynical way... The NHS and teaching, for example, need the fairly highly skilled staff (who are disproportionately women) to stay in the role, as it would take a long time to train up a replacement. Think of the NHS if all the nurses didn't bother going back after mat leave because the pay (and mat pay) was so crap? It would be on its knees (more so than now). Whereas retail they can replace the woman more easily, so no incentive to give them decent mat pay so they stay.

On the other hand, look at politics. Probably has decent mat pay, but how many women high up in politics have actually taken mat leave while there? Very few, I can only think of two. Because there are a hundred men behind them willing to jump into the woman's job.

I'm not even sure what point I'm making anymore

Lass, if a woman ends maternity leave and goes onto parental leave, then her husband can take parental leave at the same time, AFAIK. Do correct me if I am wrong, though.

As far as I'm aware you are wrong. One of my male employees has twice taken 4 months parental leave. It was certainly made clear to him he needed to provide us with confirmation his wife had gone back to work before he went off.

I'm pretty certain that if we had not been 100% in the right we would not have asked for that (and he would have argued about it if we were wrong)

Read my information above, which was from the gov.uk site. Once it's confirmed that maternity leave is going to finish with time to spare for parental leave, either parent can start to take their parental leave.

My company has a fantastic shared parental leave policy which works as AHell has suggested with both parents being allowed to take parental leave simultaneously.
The best thing is that, in my area at least, there's been a real uptake of not just parental leave amongst men but also a shift to flexible working on their return to allow them to spend time with their kids.
This is almost entirely because our boss started the trend by taking 6 weeks leave and vocally encouraging new fathers to do the same - I don't think anyone else could have been the first to break the barrier without pretty significant career impacts otherwise.
Encouragingly, this boss has since moved to a different area but men are still taking paternity leave. I'm hoping that the current success continues because it really makes for a much better work environment now that people don't feel the need to pretend they're not parents at work.

Further to the discussion about why society should pay towards the raising of children, it's not just about paying for your retirement whisky. It's about there being someone there to care for you during it. You can save as much as you like, but if people don't have children there'll be nobody to wipe your arse for you. Nor will there be any doctors to look after you if you get old and infirm enough: by the time you're into your 80s, there won't be many medical staff left who aren't at least a generation younger than you. Your pension pot will be no good if there aren't enough people available for you to pay to look after you when you get old enough. And the reality is that, especially with ludicrous housing prices, increasing numbers of people are going to need some financial assistance. Perhaps people who don't want to accept that they'll benefit from other people having children should be able to opt out of paying for them, on the understanding that they agree to be put down at a suitable age.

WRT the OP, it's an interesting idea but I don't see how we could wangle it. Too many practical obstacles. My worry always with allocating more leave to men and similar types of policy is that it would come out of the gains women have made, rather than being extra, iyswim. So for example people mention a use it or lose it period of ML for the dad. Fine, but the paid period is only 9 months already and a significant minority of us do need all of that. Especially if we aren't able to work late into pregnancy.

I do see the latter risk, Boner, and I'd like it to be 12m for one parent but 13m total if other parent takes at least 1m. So additive not reductive.

Oh sure. I just think what's more likely is that it would come out of the existing allowance. I suppose that doesn't matter as much if it's the unpaid period, but that makes it less likely that people will take it. If you offered me a Norwegian model I'd take it, but there doesn't seem to be any possibility of that.