Latest figures show that the UK’s gender pay gap is now 14.9% – which is higher than the EU average (12.7%).
Statutory paternity leave and pay in the UK is among the lowest in Europe. The pay rate is lower than the minimum wage, and represents about a quarter of the median pay for a full-time working man (£652 per week).
When Baz Price (pictured above) and his wife Laura decided that he should take shared parental leave to look after their baby when she arrived, they discovered that his employer, Powys County Council, only enhanced SPL to the level of statutory maternity pay (currently £151.97 or 90% of average weekly earnings – whichever is lower).
We have been invited by the House of Commons Petitions Committee, to feed into its exploration of whether or not to extend maternity leave for 3 months in response to the Covid-19 lockdown[1].
Jeremy Davies writes:
Parenting leave experts always knew that Shared Parental Leave (SPL) would disappoint. The international evidence is clear: if governments are serious about encouraging large numbers of fathers to take substantial periods of leave during the baby’s first year (as they should be if they are serious about tackling the gender pay gap and improving children’s outcomes), they need to do two things.
Double statutory paternity leave and pay it at a higher rate…introduce six weeks’ use-it-or-lose-it ‘daddy leave’…reform the Family Courts to introduce a presumption of 50-50 shared parenting…who’s promising what about fatherhood in their 2015 election manifestos?