MNHQ here: 'Pregnant then Screwed' is launching a campaign (and inviting you to a march on Halloween) - tell us what you think

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Some of you will know of the campaign group Pregnant then Screwed, which came to prominence a few years ago by highlighting women's experiences of pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace.

On Halloween, they're holding marches in locations across the UK (London, Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow) to 'demand recognition, respect and change for working mums'. In deference to the day, they're inviting people to turn up dressed as mummies - the Walking Dead kind.

Here are the changes they're calling for. We know that in the past MNers have expressed support for more and better exclusive, paid paternity leave - but we'd love to know what you think about this list:

1. Increase the time limit to raise a tribunal claim from 3 months to (at least) 6 months for pregnant and postpartum women.

2. Require companies to report on how many flexible working requests are made and how many are granted.

3. Give fathers access to 6 weeks non-transferable paternity leave paid at 90% of salary.

4. Give the self-employed access to statutory shared parental pay.

5. Subsidise childcare from 6 months old, rather than 3 years old.

Over to you - and if you'd like to join the march you can find all the details here.

Thanks
MNHQ

chosen That's the problem. I was able to maximize my income because DH earns so much. Very few people are in my position. When I'm in the UK I am often left wondering how many more mothers would be working if they could break even and how the landscape in the working world would change if more mothers continued to work FT.

The reason I'm so passionate about this is because if I was living in England with my 3DC I would be a SAHM as DH would not have supported my choice to have a career. He was not about to subsidize me working. I had to earn enough to cover expenses. I don't think you have much of an idea of just how much childcare is. I would be paying £30k a year but because of taxes being higher, I would have been making £25k a year after taxes. Then I would have the cost of working, meaning it would probably cost us about £10k a year for me to work. No one whose OH is on £100k or less can afford to subsidize that.

I am always left thinking about many of the female doctors and nurses who treat my father. Many are PT as they are working mothers and work hours that fit with school. Imagine if they could afford to work FT.

Hi

I am glad you are passionate as I think we should all be :)

I don't think we should focus on childcare or trying to get the government to pay for it. In my opinion we should focus on;

Females at board level (I think this will come along with males who understand the working parent issues as generations move on)

Workplaces being truly flexible as much as possible - flexible for all. (Working day start/end flexible, WFH etc).

Carers/dependants leave - few days given to all to cope with personal issues.

Support for maternity returners- specific career coaching and mentoring to 'catch-up'.

Not using the term 'only' working part time!

School hours and times - I think there is a problem with these in that they are out of date regarding both parents working.

Also I am hoping that as generations move forward there will be more 'equality' in terms of earning in a relationship before starting a family. Thus not always the male earning the higher salary!

Just a few ideas I can think of!

Females at board level is a huge issue. I'm heading that way. It's really hard because just as I'm up to my neck in small children I'm expected to do an MBA.

Why should the government (I.e taxpayers) pay for all childcare?! It is already subsidised from age 3?!

Because women are having to give up work after or during maternity leave because childcare costs too much and are then most likely out of the workplace until the youngest child is 5.

This also means that they are more likely to claim benefits and pay less tax due to a reduced income.

You can't grow the economy by excluding most child bearing aged women from working.

Nobody needs to have a child though. I can find the cost of local childcare with a five minute Google and see if my salary can cover it. It's not hard but seems an alien concept for many.

Plus not everyone plans to return to work, many simply don't as they planned to quit anyway or only worked the minimum to get maternity pay etc.

I would though rather make childcare tax deductible than pay benefits. At least that way it's not as much of a cost and people still have to cover it themselves.

Nobody needs to have a child though.

Fair enough if you said noone needs 5 children, but if noone ever had a child due to the high costs, the population would crash and/or we would have to import staff for every job from other countries.

Exactly. There is currently extremely poor provision for the high cost of having a child. Stats published showed 70% of families in poverty. The impact of children growing up in poverty is negative in terms of educational outcomes and their health. If we want to turn that around we have to rethink the structure of support for families. The easiest way to turn around poverty is to increase income. The way to achieve that is helping with the cost of childcare.

I would also like benefits to be calculated based on household income after childcare. A household with an income of £100k isn't well off if they have two pre school children and both work FT to earn that.

Re subsidised child care - The impact of women dropping out of the workforce whilst children are young has a catastrophic effect on their lifetime earnings (and therefore, economic contribution). Even if you can't get on board with the idea that we should support families as the "right" thing to do, there is a strong economic case to be made that slapping what amounts to a 30+ year penalty for women - and the subsequent impact on GDP - as a consequence of making a short term decision based on childcare costs is an incredibly stupid and short sighted thing to do.

On the original questions:

• yes to 6month claims
• meh on flexible working data - I think it's really hard to interpret this at an aggregate level given the multiple reasons you can make a request. Not sure how helpful it'll be.
• yes yes YES YES on paternity leave - so important
• self employed stuff - seems sensible, would be interested to see the coatings
• as per the above, a big fat YES to subsidised child care