WEN Wales is a
representative women’s network
and human rights organisation working to influence policy-making
and empower women to achieve equal status in corporate and civil
life. Our charitable objects are to promote equality and human
rights with specific reference to women and gender equality in
Wales.
Pregnancy, Maternity
& Work in Wales:
1.
The Equality and Human Rights
Commissions’ 2017 inquiry into pregnancy and maternity discrimination research
findingshighlights some
real concerns in Wales with regards to how women feel that they are
being treated and the attitudinal barriers they face from
employers.
Of the mothers who were consulted by the EHRC in Wales:
·
71% reported negative or possibly discriminatory experiences
·
10% felt forced to leave their jobs
·
15% reported financial loss
·
46% reported a negative impact on opportunity, status or job
security
2.
Coupled with the findings when the
EHRC consulted with employers in Wales, there are clearly worrying
and contradictory attitudes that require attention. Of employers
surveyed and interviewed:
·
87% feel it is in the best interest of the organisation to support
pregnant women and those on maternity leave
·
65% feel women should declare upfront at recruitment if they are
pregnant
·
36% said all statutory rights are reasonable
·
26% said all statutory rights are easy to facilitate
·
23% said pregnancy puts an unreasonable cost burden on the
workforce
3.
These snapshots indicate that
despite the legislation in place to protect the rights of pregnant
women and women on maternity leave there are feelings amongst the
majority of Welsh employers interviewed that pregnancy and
maternity leave: is unreasonably costly; it is difficult to facilitate
all statutory rights; and
that statutory rights go beyond what is
reasonable. It is worrying then
that 65% of employers would have women declare pregnancy during
recruitment, and presumably through conscious or unconscious bias,
these women would reap the consequences of the unpopular levels of
protection that pregnant women and those on maternity are covered
by, in the eyes of the law.
4.
Despite this protection afforded
by the Equalities Act (2010), discrimination occurs frequently
across the UK and must be examined from an intersectional
perspective:
·
Under 25 year olds were
found to be more likely to say they were not willingly
supported by employers and felt
increased pressure to resign once they had announced their pregnancy, in
comparison to older women.
·
Women from Ethnic Minorities were more likely than White British women to
report financial loss, negative impact on opportunities,
status and job security
or have had negative experiences
in relation to breastfeeding.
·
Women with long term
physical or mental health conditions were more likely to feel forced to
leave their jobs, in relation to
women who did not identify long term physical or mental health
conditions.
·
Single women were more
likely to feel
unsupported, more likely to
report financial loss, negative impacts on opportunities,
under pressure to resign
and felt that employers
were unhappy about them going on
maternity leave, in comparison to women who weren’t
single.
5.
The EHRC’s findings in this
area highlight the complex nature of the discrimination that women
in the UK are experiencing, not only under the protected
characteristic of pregnancy or maternity but also other
characteristics covered by the Equalities Act (2010), in addition
to other factors such as marital status associated with societal
taboos and gender stereotypes.
6.
It is then not surprising, along
with gender stereotyping and social taboos, that in 2016/17 just
250 men in Wales took shared parental leave, according to HMRC
statistics, obtained by BBC Wales.
This amounts to less than 1% of new fathers in Wales receiving
payment for shared parental leave to look after their new born
children, in the first full year since shared parental leave was
introduced in 2015.
7.
Given that research suggests that
the longer the period of maternity leave taken, the larger the
impact on the gender pay gap
– which is estimated at around 15% in Wales
– new fathers may feel that they risk damaging their own
careers prospects by taking
shared parental leave. PwC’s 2018 report ‘PwC Women in
Work Index Closing the gender pay gap’ shows that countries
with more generous maternity leave periods have higher gender pay
gaps, though the introduction of shared parental leave and
encouraging men to take this up could change the effect of paid
maternity leave on the pay gap over time.
The additional element of encouragement through incentivising men
to take up shared parental leave is key and is missing from the
current UK Government policy.
8.
At a UK Government level, there is
also a clear lack of leadership as demonstrated by UK Minister
Andrew Griffiths’ admission on BBC Radio 5, that despite
launching the campaign ‘Share the Joy’
to encourage take up of shared parental leave in the UK, he himself
– an expectant father – firstly would be unable to take
shared parental leave, because ministers were not eligible. More
shocking though, was his admission that he had not even considered
the possibility of having the rules changed so that ministers could
take shared parental leave. Instead, he insisted that he planned to
be the first minister responsible for parental leave to take their
full two weeks of paternity leave.
9.
With current electoral reform considerations taking place in the
National Assembly for Wales right now, there is a clear opportunity
for Assembly Members and Welsh Ministers to change the rules to
ensure that they themselves are eligible to take shared parental
leave and can champion equality in relation to gender equality when
it comes to shared caring responsibilities, unlike in Westminster.
WEN Wales recommends that the Committee calls for changes to
eligibility for elected ministers in Westminster and the National
Assembly for Wales with regards to shared parental leave.
10. It’s worrying that so few men in Wales
have taken up the offer of shared parental leave since the policy
came in in 2015. It is worth examining the details of parental
leave in comparison to Sweden, whose approach to shared parental
leave, coupled with guaranteed, affordable childcare for all
children over the age of 12 months encourages equal co-parenting
and parents to have the affordable choice of returning to
work.
11. UK shared parental leave:
-
Allows parents to share 50 weeks of leave - with 37
paid.
-
Parents can take time off separately or together for up to six
months.
-
This is paid at £140.98 per week or 90% of parents’
average earnings (whichever is lower).
-
It must be taken between the baby’s birth and first
birthday (or within a year of adoption).
-
It can be taken in one block or split into blocks (up to 3
blocks) with periods of work in between.
-
In addition to shared parental leave, fathers can take two weeks
paternity leave and mothers must take two weeks compulsory
maternity leave after the birth of a child. This time is not
deducted from shared parental leave allowance.
12. Swedish shared parental leave:
·
Parents are entitled to 480 days (around 16 months) of paid
parental leave when a child is born or adopted.
·
This leave can be taken by the month, week, day or even hour.
·
This can be taken any time before the child’s eighth
birthday.
·
On average, women take most of the days, with men taking around
one-fourth of the parental leave.
·
For 390 days, parents are entitled to nearly 80% of their pay (up
to around £2,900 per month) with the remainder paid at a flat
daily rate (approximately £15).
·
Those who are not employed are also entitled to paid parental
leave.
·
Parents with twins or more have the right to additional paid
parental leave (180 days extra).
·
90 days of leave are allocated specifically to each parent and
cannot be transferred to the other (the “use it or lose it” system
introduced in 1995 and extended in 2002).
·
In addition, one of the parents of the new born gets 10 extra days
in connection with the birth (20 days for twins).
·
During the first 3 months of the new
baby’s life, the father is entitled to be home for 10 days.
These days are in addition to the 480 parent days.
·
A single parent is entitled to the full 480 days (with sole
custody).
·
Employers do not pay the cost for parental leave, instead it is
paid by the Swedish Social Insurance Administration.
·
To be eligible parents must be legal residents of Sweden.
·
Companies, in addition to the 480
parent leave days per child, are also entitled to allow parents to
reduce their working hours by an additional 25%.
·
It is possible to work
part-time and take parental leave the remainder of the
time.
·
Children are guaranteed a place in
childcare from the age of 12 months for a very modest sum, making
it possible for women to return to work.
13. In Sweden, women currently
claim about 75% of parental leave, compared with 99.5% when it was
introduced in 1974. About
80% of children in Sweden have two working parents, but only 40% of
women work full-time compared with 75% of men, according to 2013
statistics. Official figures from Eurostat show that 77% of women
in Sweden had a job in 2014 – the highest level in the
European Union.
14. In Wales, there does not seem to be join-up
between shared parental leave in the first year of an
infant’s life – which according to the UK Government,
allows “mothers to return to work sooner if they wish
to” which “can contribute to [employers] closing their
gender pay gap”,
and the unaffordability of childcare in the UK, which has one of
the highest rates for childcare in the world.
While the Welsh Government is
proposing a policy of 30 hours per week for free early education
and childcare for working parents, this applies only to children
over the age of 3, which shows a clear gap between ages 1-3 which
is not covered by either policy. This gap is even longer when, for
example shared parental leave is taken by both parents for the
first 6 months or one or both parents return to work before their
child’s first birthday.
15. WEN Wales would
therefore recommend that childcare is offered from 6 months, rather
than from 3 years and is not limited to those who meet the current
employment requirements. This clearly disadvantages families and
their children who do not meet these requirements. When such a
large proportion of pregnant women feel pressured into resigning
posts while pregnant this is highly problematic as it imposes the
double burden of ineligibility for parental leave (whether
maternity or shared parental leave) and childcare, which could
allow women to get back into jobs.
16. With regards to the Welsh Government 30-hour
childcare scheme being piloted in some areas, the law that stops
childminders receiving funding for looking after relatives (e.g.
their grandchildren) must be changed, as has been highlighted by
the Future Generations Commissioner Sophie Howe.
Fully qualified childminders should not be disadvantaged, nor
should parents be forced to seek additional childcare provisions
with strangers. It adds an unnecessary and counter-intuitive burden
to both childminders and working families. It is currently
estimated that 12.5% of the 2,000 childminders registered in Wales
have had issues caring for a relative who does not live with them,
while 38% expected to provide childcare to a relative in the
future.
17. There is also a real societal and attitudinal
issue around care work – both paid and unpaid in the UK
generally. The UK have a high reliance on 'informal' childcare
(such as relying on non-official care from relatives or friends).
Over a third of parents - 36.9% - use this kind of care for
children aged 3-5. In France it's 19.6% and even lower in Denmark,
where it's 0.1%.[21]
18. It is imperative that a ‘caring
economy’ is created in Wales that does not rely on unpaid or
underpaid, undervalued and disproportionately women-driven
responsibilities of caring for children and vulnerable
adults.
19. Women remain the primary carers for children
with 94% of UK child
benefit claims paid to
women.
In Wales, almost half of mothers say they are solely or mainly
responsible for child care (compared with just 4% of
fathers).
The heavy reliance on women’s unpaid work in this regard has
a huge impact on women’s careers, ambitions and aspirations.
With an aging population and austerity measures putting statutory
services under greater strain, increased pressure on care givers in
Wales will inevitably have detrimental effects on the Welsh economy
and the health of the people of Wales as more and more is being
expected of them, while the UK Government and Welsh Government
provide inadequate support for huge sections of the
population.
WEN
Wales Recommends:
·
Welsh Government to challenge attitudes of employers in Wales which
clearly show a disconnect between understanding the importance of
supporting employees to take maternity, paternity and shared
parental leave – and the lived experience of women who have
voiced negative or discriminatory treatment from employers. Also,
to see the connection between the treatment of women taking
maternity leave and the knock on effects that this has with regards
to men’s willingness (or lack thereof) to take shared
parental leave and their fair share of caring
responsibilities.
·
Welsh Government to ensure that there is guaranteed flexible,
affordable and subsidised childcare for all parents from the age of
6 months (rather than from 3 years for parents currently in
employment).
·
Changes to the law so when rolled out, the Welsh Government’s
30 hours of free child care scheme allows registered childminders
to care for their relatives.
·
Welsh ministers to call for changes to the current UK shared
parental leave system available to Welsh parents, to better
incentivise fathers’ uptake of increased parental leave and
caring responsibilities for their children. The changes WEN Wales
would like to see are:
i.
Fathers must have access to twelve weeks of non-transferable
paternity leave at 90% of their salary
ii.
increased flexibility of the model to better suit
families
·
Require employers in Wales to carry out equality impact assessments
in relation to the retention of staff after parental leave.
·
Committee and Assembly Members to push for eligibility for shared
parental leave, in connection to current inquiry being conducted
around Creating a Parliament for Wales, that includes provisions
such as job-share so that male and female AMs can lead by example.
In addition, encourage UK Government to do the same so that MPs are
also eligible to take shared parental leave.
WEN Wales would like to thank the National Assembly for
Wales’ Equality, Local Government & Communities Committee
for the opportunity to contribute to their inquiry into Pregnancy,
Maternity and Work in Wales.
If you have any further
comments or queries, please get in touch.
Hilary
Watson
Policy
& Communications Officer
hilary@wenwales.org.uk