Maternity leave for men!
March 25, 2008
There’s often discussion about parental rights in terms of employment, and one area that’s not often out of the news is the rights to maternity and paternity pay. In the age of the ‘new man’, the question is should it only be the female that is entitled to extended leave (because she’s the one giving birth!) or should couples be able to share the available leave in the baby’s first year?
The Conservatives have recently taken this discussion to the next level; by unveiling plans to allow mothers and fathers to divide the maternity leave between them as they choose, as well as increasing the statutory paid leave period to 52 weeks (it’s currently 39 weeks). This system would be called ‘flexible parental leave’ and would give a lot more choice in how the leave is allocated, including the ability for both parents to take half of the year’s entitlement simultaneously and be paid double the rate of SMP. Alternatively the father could take the entire 52 weeks leave instead of the mother. I would assume that the compulsory leave for the mother would remain as the two weeks immediately after the birth as this is a health and safety provision.
These changes would be a really positive step towards giving both parents the chance to participate in the early weeks and months of their children’s lives, and for couples where the female is the higher earner it may be more beneficial financially as well. Mind you, I hope I’m not the higher earner in my relationship by the time we have kids – I think I’d be quite upset going off to work and leaving the new family at home, but I guess this is what guys do all the time at the moment.
I can’t imagine that many couples would be able to afford a drop in both incomes for a long period of time in order to take simultaneous leave, but the flexibility in these new proposals would definitely help a lot of couples. I think it might have quite a big effect on businesses though – especially in one like my organisation where around 80% of the employees are male and all within a similar age bracket – parental leave could suddenly become a big problem in a few years where everybody starts to reach the age of fatherhood together. It all comes back to that D word – diversity in workforces isn’t just for the sake of equal opportunities, a big bunch of people who are all the same will bring the same challenges and possibly all at the same time!
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