Maternity leave being undermined by Shared Parental Leave?

[Sunkisses]

I'm concerned that recent legal cases show that women's rights via maternity leave and pay are being undermined and devalued by Shared Parental Leave, a possible unfortunate and very dangerous outcome for women. The legal cases ultimately (and thankfully) failed, but I want to draw women's attention to this. For me, this goes hand in hand with the denial of women's biological reality that trans activism does.

Two men bought cases against their employers arguing 'discrimination' as their employers paid more money (maternity pay) to mothers than they did to fathers who took Shared Parental Leave and just got the statutory amount. This is tone deaf to the massive toll pregnancy and childbirth has on women, recovery time, PND, the importance of breastfeeding, and the critical importance for bonding between mother and newborn in the first year. Worryingly it looks like their cases initially won at the Employment Tribunals, but thankfully were overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Our foremothers fought long and hard for maternity leave and pay. Our generation must make sure it is never undermined on our watch.

More info about the cases here: www.personneltoday.com/hr/hextall-v-leicestershire-ali-v-capita-enhanced-maternity-pay-shared-parental-pay-court-of-appeal/

Shared parental leave is important for women’s equality. It prevents the situation that occurs now where men do little of the day to day childcare and it’s all left to women, whose careers suffer. Countries that have a proper established scheme have a more equal representation of women at all levels in the workplace and help to fight stupid stereotypes that only women can care for children.

At six months post-birth, only 12% of babies are exclusively breastfed. Shared care is something positive and should be encouraged. There should be a period of leave for maternity (maybe first six months) but I absolutely encourage and support the normalisation of men also taking some time off to perform caring duties and for employers to be encouraged to offer this on the same terms as they offer maternity leave.

Being lumbered with all the care work while men get to be perfect dad without actually lifting a finger does us no favours long-term.

And also, those cases are not ‘undermining maternity leave’. Men were asking for enhanced parental leave pay on the same basis as maternity. The tribunal said no. How would it have been negative for women if men had won the right to also get enhanced pay from the employer? It wouldn’t have removed the enhanced pay for women. It would just have meant that a couple could make different decisions in terms of who takes time off work and could share the leave between the two of them rather than it always being the mother.

In Scandinavian countries, parental leave is shared and people do actually share it. It means that there is less of this ridiculous stigma against men doing caring work. It’s seriously essential if we want any hope of equality.

I agree with you but I can see both sides of the argument.

To me it is premised on equality for men and women being the same - women are equal in the workplace hence the idea is that men should be doing equal amounts at home. The idea is that shared parental leave increases male involvement with their children - and to be clear, I think that is a good thing. However, in fact, men and women are not the same because only one of them has done the physical act of bearing the child and that has an impact in many ways. The risk as you say is erasing that difference.

I agree with your point that there are physical and psychological reasons why mothers’ leave should be protected. I also think that flexible working policies for both parents are as important as shared parental leave.

I disagree that maternity pay is compensation for the physical toll on the body of childbirth. It's in lieu of salary to enable a woman to stay at home and care for the child. So if the father is doing that then it stands to reason his pay should be the same.
If maternity pay is more, that gets used as a way of ensuring the primary carer remains the mother. If you level the playing field in terms of money you have a better chance of convincing men to take that career break and allowing the mother to get back to her career.

How much of this is about timings? Of my limited anecdotal knowledge, because couples doing shared parental leave have the woman taking the first chunk (& rightly so, given the physical recovery requirements that maternity leave is really for) & the partner taking time after that, usually not paid at an enhanced rate anyway? If for whatever reason, a mother chose to return to work after two months but her workplace offered six months on full pay, then under a SPL arrangement the partner should be able to make use of that & then go to the statutory rate once the six months had elapsed, as it would for standard ML.

I’m not an HR expert or a lawyer but those cases in the link seem quite strange & I would like to read more about them. Have bookmarked for later.

More widely, I agree that SPL is hugely important to combat stereotypes & provide a mechanism for women to return to work if they want to. I am considering this when I have my baby but finding good information is very difficult.

How do you feel about a mother adopting a baby being offered full maternity pay OP?

Reading that back, I am aware that ‘standard mat leave’ isn’t really a thing...

Is that also 'This is tone deaf to the massive toll pregnancy and childbirth has on women, recovery time, PND, the importance of breastfeeding, and the critical importance for bonding between mother and newborn in the first year. '

Share parental leave gives parents the option to share the leave between themselves. Usually the mother would take the first half and the father the second half. It’s not just careers that suffer from what happens now. It’s stuff like pensions- women suffer old age poverty at a much higher rate than men. It’s poverty in divorce. It’s women being time-short and stressed because they have to look after kids as well as working (for less pay than men). It’s women constantly being thought of as more naturally caring and nurturing than men and therefore being landed with shit-jobs.
In the countries that have SPL, there are specified periods of maternity and I think there is in the UK too. It doesn’t mean men have to take SPL, it just gives an option.

You can go to the Relationships board to see the impact our current social trend has on women. So many men who can’t look after their own children and see it as ‘babysitting’. Perhaps if they had an extended period of sole care, it wouldn’t be such an ordeal for them.

Yes, women give birth and that is biological but there is no biological reason why women should be the primary carers beyond breast feeding. Unless you believe in lady-brain and inherent disposition towards caregiving that is.

I fully support the concept of Shared Parental Leave, for all the equality reasons above. In the main, SPL gives men and women more choices about their career and home balance.

It is very important to recognise that one of the purposes of maternity leave is for physical and mental recovery from pregnancy and birth. This is why there is a statutory minimum of two weeks (four weeks in industrial settings) that must be taken by the mother. Whether that two/four weeks is long enough is a separate debate, but the current system does recognise the mother's need for recovery time immediately after the birth.

SPL is a trainwreck of a system and it absolutely disadvantages women as it is. We did it and it's a horrible arrangement because if you want your partner to have time off, you have to "give" them your leave. I ended up massively resenting my partner because I was back at work before I was physically and mentally ready.

The answer is to massively increase paternity leave, not to put women in a situation where they have to cut their own allowance in order to give it to the male partner.

I'll try that again!

How do you feel about a mother adopting a baby being offered full, or enhanced maternity pay OP?

Do you consider that also to be ’tone deaf to the massive toll pregnancy and childbirth has on women, recovery time, PND, the importance of breastfeeding, and the critical importance for bonding between mother and newborn in the first year. '

Surely if we level the playing field that allows more choice. Which is surely only a good thing.

It enables a family to decide which parent returns to work and at no financial cost to them, as the pay is equal. This will help in supporting women back to work if they choose and try to normalise men being the ones staying at home and therefore reduce the stigma attached when a man becomes a SAHP.

Maternity is not to compensate for the physical injuries endured in childbirth, but in replacement of their lost salary.

I think it can only be a positive.

Agnes but I presume that that was the arrangement you had with your partner and you decided to go back before you felt ready. You don’t have to share it-it gives an option. It doesn’t make economic sense for both parents to be out of the workplace for several months at the same time. I think that some countries offer the opportunity to share the leave for up to 18 months.

I think adoption leave brings up a different set of issues though, as the focus there is on supporting the psychological and physical adjustment of the child. So of course the person who is going to be the main carer should have leave or it be shared.

For maternity leave, the point is that there are also physical and psychological effects of giving birth and some of the leave should be protected for mothers (in my opinion).

SoloNow unless it’s a massively traumatic birth, it doesn’t take a full year to recover from birth and countries that offer SPL have a mandatory period that must be taken by the mother to reflect recovery.

Are people seriously saying that they prefer a system where only women are able to care for babies, even if both the man and the woman would prefer that the man did some or all of it?

I can see your point but disagree. I got enhanced maternity but oh would only get stat pay (we work for the same employer). He gets paid far more than me (for various reasons some of which include career breaks due to previous pregnancies). We might have considered him taking some of the leave and me going back to work sooner if he'd be entitled to more than SMP but it doesn't make sense and would be unaffordable. Therefore I'm the one taking all the leave and my career pauses again. The difference in normal pay also means it makes more sense for me to go part time than him if we don't want dd to go into full time childcare hence my career slows further (bit of a viscous circle). A few other recently pregnant colleagues have taken advantage of shared leave as their oh get enhanced pay (different employers) which has been great for them.

SPL is a trainwreck of a system and it absolutely disadvantages women as it is. We did it and it's a horrible arrangement because if you want your partner to have time off, you have to "give" them your leave. I ended up massively resenting my partner because I was back at work before I was physically and mentally ready.

We also did it (though not entirely 50-50 - I had six months and DH had 4) and I couldn't disagree more. I am so grateful it was an option - and it is just that, an option, no one makes you do it and the vast, vast majority of couples don't. The reason the woman 'gives away' her leave is precisely so that it's her decision and she can't be forced to give up more of it than she would like, as would happen if men had a statutory right to a certain proportion of the leave.

DH and I are the most equal parents we know by a long way, and I think that is almost entirely down to SPL. I think it's a real shame that more couples don't choose to do it.

I agree that SPL is a good thing and supports women more than maternity leave. Women now have the option to return to their careers sooner and have their partner take on the caring role, women have fought so hard to be seen as equals in the workplace and not just carers this is a big step in encouraging more fathers to take on caring responsibilities.

Extending paternity leave, so both parents are at home at the same time, is thrown about too often. It will never happen and makes no economic sense, but shared leave gives parents a choice they have never had before.

Men receiving equal pay for SPL encourages this shift, it's too common now for women to be overlooked or held back because they have children or are of childbearing age (I'm a little bitter on this having just been denied a promotion solely because I'm pregnant. Of course it went to the man whose wife gave up work to do all child care).

I said ‘some of the leave’ - I did not say ‘a full year’

Although I also had a son (with later diagnosed SN) who would not let me put him down and did not settle in nursery, which raised a whole other set of issues.

I agree with @Pota2. SPL is hugely important to women's equality in the workplace - to make sure that women are not always the default parent, to make sure women of childbearing age are not disadvantaged compared to their make peers when applying for jobs or promotions, to even up the playing field.

Maternity rights are hugely important, yes, but the next step to improve equality for women in the workplace is to make sure nothing disincentivises men from being equal parents.

I think men being entitled to the same pay as women if they take SPL would benefit women.

Women of a certain age are often overlooked for jobs or promotion because of the cost of maternity leave. If men were entitled to the same this mentality would hopefully change.

However I do think it shouldn't be at the cost of the women's leave. It should be in addition to.

I feel very strongly that the physical-ness of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding is massivley downplayed in society (exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months may be rare but plenty more are still breastfeeding alongside weaning). I have concerns about women being forced back to work before they are fit. Fine if you have an easy pregnancy and birth and a nice office job. Bit harder if you are still having physio and complications from stitches and you are trudging round a care home moving patients. I had one easy pregnancy and birth and one incredibly difficult one which changed my view on this.

Its often quoted on here about 6 months of leave for each parent being fair but people dont factor in that many, many women have to start their mat leave before the baby arrives due to pregnancy complications or the type of work they do so they may be returning at 5 or even 4 months after birth if they split the leave equally in the name of equality.
I fully appreciate that getting men involved in childcare early is incredibly important but the emphasis should be on men requesting longer term familiy friendly working such as leaving each day for nursery pick up, working part time, taking days off at short notice as your child is sick. Its no point taking months 6- 8 off and then returning to city working hours expecting the mother to make all the other long term adjustments.

That said i think men on parental leave should get the same rate women on parental leave would get for those particular months so i dont see why this case failed. And I like a system where families get to chose what works for them. Which i believe we have.

@pota2 Yes and this is actually another massive issue with the SPL system, it's only a viable option for couples where the woman is the higher earner.

So basically if you want to split childcare with any equality, then you not only have to give up part of your mat leave but you also can only do it if the mother's income can support the father being on statutory pay (or no pay, depending on when it's taken).

Having navigated the system it's a joke. There's a reason why uptake is so low. If fathers were able to take a decent allowance of paid paternity leave and choose when to take it (a la places like Norway, as far as I understand it), it would encourage genuinely equal childcare. The current system is just token lip service to the idea of promoting equality.

To be clear, I'm absolutely pro men being at home with babies, my issue is that the current SPL system makes that a really unattractive option for most people in reality and it needs a complete overhaul.

Incidentally, DH also had, in practice, extended paternity leave (he's a teacher and DS very obligingly came two weeks before the summer, so DH was at home for eight weeks) and that wasn't nearly as good for us as SPL. At that point babycare was all about breastfeeding and so although it was nice having some around to make me food and change nappies, it still felt very much like I was doing all the caring and DH was in the background (that was a big shock to me as I thought it would all be 50-50 from the start because DH would have all this time at home). For us DH being at home later was much better, not just for my career (which extended paternity leave at the beginning does nothing for) but also for their bond and him learning how to be an equal parent. Four months just the two of them during the day transformed things like who the 'default parent' is (it's neither of us, or both of us, depending on how you look at it - and DH is the only dad I know who does not just the basics of caring for the kid for a few hours but things like appointments, packing for the child for holiday, buying new clothes when they're needed, etc), in a way that him being around when I was too in the early months wouldn't and didn't.