As a first-time expectant father, I will soon be taking statutory paid paternity leave to help out at home wherever I can, through those early tiring weeks after our baby is born. As an academic, I also have a relatively flexible job, and will be able to adjust my working pattern so that my wife can go back to work and continue her career after maternity leave. My research on Modern Fatherhood makes me realise how lucky I am to have access to such family friendly working. Many are not so lucky, and fathers in particular do not have the opportunity to re-balance their work and family life, should they want to.
Now, I would guess that at least half of the people reading this blog are wondering ‘why cry out for more opportunities for fathers?’ when we all know that it is females that get the bad deal in the work place – particularly after childbirth. However, there is evidence that father involvement in child rearing early on – facilitated by longer periods of leave – improves not only the relationship between father and child, but also the balance of care responsibilities between mother and father throughout childhood. This can benefit mothers’ working lives as well as family lives, because dad takes a fairer share of caring for the child – including taking time off work when the child is sick, and to do the school run – promoting gender equality in the workplace.
In the UK, there are two main forms of government policy that oversee this domain – ‘leave’ policies for parents and the right to request flexible working. However, eligibility and coverage of these policies is not straight forward, or universal.
In order to be eligible for paid maternity/paternity leave there are three conditions based upon employment status, length of service and pay. Individuals:
- have to be employees
- have to have worked continuously for the same employers for 26 weeks
- have gross weekly earnings at least equal to the lower earnings limit for National Insurance contributions (£113 in 2016-17).
Eligible mothers are entitled to 6 weeks paid at 90% of their average weekly earnings, followed by 33 weeks paid at a flat rate of either £140.98 (for 2016-17) or 90% of earnings, whichever is lower. The remaining 13 weeks are unpaid. Paternity leave allows eligible fathers to take up to 2 weeks, paid £140.98 or 90% of earnings for both weeks.
For those not eligible for paid maternity leave, there is a looser set of conditions for maternity allowance – this covers workers and the self-employed and has weaker requirements on length of service and pay. This is paid at the lower flat rate for 39 weeks. There is no paternity allowance for fathers.
There are two striking features of these policies; firstly, that maternity leave is extremely generous in terms of length of time off – the longest in Europe in fact – but is poorly paid. The TUC ranked the UK 22nd out of 24 European countries for levels of paid maternity leave. The second striking feature is the disparity between maternity leave and paternity leave. Whilst ‘Shared Parental Leave’ is available to families, this is effectively a transfer of maternity leave to the father. The loss of maternity leave, and the likelihood that families would be financially worse off, does not create incentives to take up this entitlement, even if couples meet the eligibility requirements. Countries such as Iceland have far more progressive leave policies, where mothers and fathers each have 3 months of statutory leave, with another three months shared out as they see fit. Whilst leave is shorter, it is much better paid than it is in the UK.
The right to request flexible working also has conditionalities attached. It is only available for employees, who have been in continuous employment with the same employer for at least 26 weeks. The problem here is that whilst employees have a right to request flexible working, employers are under no obligation to approve such requests.
What proportion of parents do not have access to these family friendly work policies?
One might expect there to be a high or near-universal coverage of what many may deem to be basic rights, or at least standard employment practices. However, we found that a significant proportion of individuals in the UK do not meet the eligibility requirements for maternity/paternity leave or have access to flexible working.
For individuals who have become parents in the last 12 months, 27% of working fathers and 16% of working mothers were not eligible for paid leave. A quarter of those mothers were not even eligible for the maternity allowance – meaning that almost 1 in 20 new mothers in work have no paid maternity leave at all.
Looking at a wider population – those of prime working and prime fertility age (20-49) – a significant proportion would not be eligible for leave (see below) and 12% of all working women in this age bracket would not be eligible for maternity allowance.
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The largest group that are not eligible are the self-employed. If one is in charge of their own hours and presumably can work flexibly, then access to paid leave and flexible working is deemed not required. However, the rise of ‘bogus self-employment’ – where employers designate staff as self-employed, when most outsiders would judge it to be an employer-employee relationship, alongside the rise of ‘precarious employment’ – low paid, short-term, zero or low hours contracts and such like – means that many individuals are susceptible to miss out on paid leave. These sorts of jobs are not well paid, so it is unlikely that families have built up any significant savings to see them through any unpaid leave.
Amongst fathers who are contracted as employees, 30% report that they have no access to family friendly working options in the workplace, while 10% of mothers reported no access. This lack of access to flexible working is much more prominent in male-dominated industries.
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The UK is by no means the worst place to work as a parent, but there are many improvements required for policy to catch up with modern family working arrangements.
First, clarification on the employment status of workers, and their rights, is needed to ensure that labour market protections and leave policies are available for the ‘self-employed’.
Second, due to the rise of short-term contracts, the 26 week qualifying period should be extended and should allow for some discontinuous employment within it. Third, a paternity allowance should be made available for men who do not meet the paid paternity leave criteria, and a rebalancing of the length of paternity and maternity leave should be considered, perhaps even reducing the overall amount of paid leave, but at better rates of pay.
Finally, employers also have a role to play in supporting cultural change and promoting a more equal distribution of leave and flexible working opportunities. Many employers offer enhanced maternity or paternity leave policies which pay above the statutory requirements, however huge disparities between genders still exist. This is beginning to change and employers are becoming more aware of work-life balance issues for both parents, and perhaps more will follow Aviva’s commitment to offer equal paid and unpaid leave regardless of gender.