AIBU to rant about the disparity between maternity and paternity pay?

[Stellarbella]

DS1 is due in September. I’m self employed and the main earner in our house, so I’ll be going back to work pretty quickly and handing over to DH who will be taking SPL for 6 months or so.

However, out of interest, DH has just sent me the maternity policy for his workplace. If I worked for his firm, I’d be entitled to 22 weeks mat leave at 92% pay, whereas he would only get 2 weeks paternity leave at full pay, and then SPL at statutory rates (e.g bugger all). Some choice!

AIBU to think that whilst this disparity exists, women are effectively forced to adopt the role of primary care giver, often resulting in a long term detrimental effect on their career prospects?

I have the rage.

I know someone in the same situation who challenged this with HR and now both maternity/ paternity and adoption leave is the same due to that challenge.

It's worth raising a grievance with HR

And YADNBU, working in HR myself it winds me up no end seeing these things come up

Ah! There was a case about this! Network rail I think. Let me see if I can find a link.

I think the reason it's like this is because men don't actually want to do it, generally, so there no energy behind pushing it to be better.

www.personneltoday.com/hr/shared-parental-pay-sex-discrimination-case-father-wins-network-rail/

I have the same issue, would love to do more shared parental leave but it's financially not viable due to our employer's policies.

I’m just off out, but would it be helpful to have a sort of template letter available to share to challenge employers? I’m also in HR and happy to look at putting something together?

Ok ready to take an absolute flaming for saying this.
But in my opinion keeping maternity leave for the biological mother is a reflection of how precious the mothers role is.
Nature wanted the mother to be the primary care giver for their infants, creating a bond in the womb and then by breastfeeding.
The focus on biological mother taking maternity leave respects how sacred this role is, and I don’t think it’s bad on the whole for women on a population level.

now both maternity/ paternity and adoption leave is the same

I suspect most companies would use it to reduce generous maternity packages rather than bring paternity up. Would that then have a detrimental effect on women? Would it force more women back to work quicker?

Is maternity leave not supposed to enable you to rest and recover (or cope with difficult pregnancy) something men will not need so should be better funded to protect women's health

I believe the network rail case meant that they changed the maternity policy for all mothers so that they are now only entitled to statutory maternity pay. Great that the couple won a payout, but shot all other women in the foot as there was a substantial enhanced policy beforehand.

I can see it now...

"AIBU to be livid that I won't be able to breastfeed for as long as I believe I should as I have to return to work due to the changes to my company's maternity package?"

That's what an employer I know has done. No company maternity pay now, just statutory as they're scared men will want to take the (former) 12 weeks full pay they used to offer.

Of course OP, as your own boss you could have organised yourself a substantial maternity package...

This was the case at my DH’s large employer - women were entitled to 26 weeks 90% pay but men only 2 weeks paternity @ 100% and then statutory.

They have now reduced the women’s maternity to 12 weeks @ 90% and made the men’s the same.

My DH had ZERO paternity leave. If he'd taken time off he could only have claimed statutory paternity pay which is £140 a week and we couldn't afford to lose that much money. If he'd been a woman he could have taken time off and been paid 90% of full salary. Totally unfair.

@katya - that would definitely be helpful, thanks.
Yes, I can see that having a row about it might lead to maternity pay being reduced rather than paternity pay increased, but that doesn’t make it right

Not on topic but- 92% for 22 weeks! That sounds amazing.

This is one of the reasons why shared parental leave is actually a totally rubbish policy, and why the uptake is minuscule. There should be properly paid paternity leave, not shared parental leave where the mother has to sacrifice her mat leave to facilitate.

@assasinated - agreed. We must be in a pretty small minority of people who can afford for DH to take statutory pay. It’s really not on.