Academics, unions and charities have combined to call on the government to carry out a comprehensive review of parental leave, including maternity, paternity and shared parental leave and how time off and pay should all be managed and structured.
In an open letter to employment minister Justin Madders, 15 academics and 18 organisations have advocated for changes to be made to parental leave.
The letter has been co-ordinated by the charity Working Families, and signatories include the TUC, Save the Children, Pregnant then Screwed and The Dad Shift, among others.
It argues that nine key principles should underpin future parental leave reform:
- Each parent should have an individual right to time off and pay, reserved just for them, which has been shown in other countries to reduce gender inequality.
- Maternity leave is important because mothers need to recover from childbirth and establish breastfeeding. Appropriate support for breastfeeding from employers should also be required.
- Leave for fathers or partners to care for their infant is important to lay the ground for fathers’ role in caring for children, and should be incentivised.
- The system must be simple and easy to understand for both parents and employers while enabling flexibility for parents, including some time off together if that’s what they want.
- Time off and pay should be available to all parents – including those classified as workers and self-employed – as an individual right from day one.
- Statutory leave and pay levels should be substantially increased and kept in line with the cost of living, to ensure that taking leave is genuinely affordable for all families.
- The system should ensure that parents have the right to return to the same job after taking leave, and are protected by law from losing their job during leave or upon return due to discrimination.
- Future reform should not come at the expense of existing parental rights and entitlements.
- Parental leave and pay policies should work alongside a part-time and flexible-by-default UK labour market; a more affordable, available childcare system that ensures work pays from the day parents return to work; and a health system that recognises both parents’ unique roles and impacts.
Labour committed in its election manifesto to reviewing parental leave arrangements “within the first year of a Labour government”.
While a formal announcement is yet to be made, sources close to the government suggest that the review will be launched by early July, argued Working Families.
Research by two of the academics who have signed the letter, Dr Joanna Clifton-Sprigg and Professor Eleonora Fichera from Bath University’s Department of Economics, has argued that shared parental leave policy has failed to deliver for fathers.
The study, which used data from 40,000 households across the UK, and published by the Institute for Policy Research, concluded that shared parental leave has not affected the number of fathers taking leave, nor the length of leave they choose to take.
Dr Clifton-Sprigg said: “An improved policy should earmark some leave specifically for fathers, be generously paid, and have less restrictive eligibility criteria to include a wider group of working parents.”
Jane van Zyl, chief executive for Working Families, added: “A rethink of the statutory offering to new parents is long overdue to enable mothers and fathers to manage the transition once a baby arrives. Shifting attitudes mean fathers want to play an active role and if we are to achieve gender equality, fathers need the chance to be involved from the get-go.
“Sadly, statutory rights have struggled to keep up with this change in attitudes. Reform is urgently needed so that families, particularly those without a financial safety net, aren’t forced back to work prematurely and have equal opportunities to spend time with their child in the first, crucial year,” she said.
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