I'm not a massive believer in mandatory paid maternity leave. And I definitely think it should be restricted. The suggestion of 12 months is too long.
I don't believe in handouts generally. In the case of maternity leave, I disagree with the attitude that just because you want to have a baby that you should expect the government to support you.
Something I find really immoral is when women choose a new employer based on the fact that they know after a certain period of time they will become eligible for paid maternity leave. Not disclosing your intentions when you plan to need leave after 6months is wrong.
And I'm highly sceptical of paid paternity leave. Men can't breastfeed. I'm sure there are some Dads who use it properly to look after the baby when the Mum returns to work early - but I find it hard to believe they are in the majority. I think most blokes who take it up will be just having a holiday.
Granted, I'm an old school kind of guy, and I know a lot of these ideas I'm expressing are out of fashion; but before you jump up and down thinking I'm a sexist old fogy, let me finish.
I also believe in old fashioned loyalty and decency. I favour handshake agreements over contracts any day of the week. The important thing is that it needs to work both ways.
In the past I've run software companies, and currently I have holiday business. So over the years I've employed a lot of sales people. I've practised a bit of sex discrimination, and it has all been positive towards women.
Purely because experience tells me that most of my best staff happened to be women. The women who work for me are all hard working professionals, and they all have a level of patience and quality communication skills which are good for business.
Recently, two of my staff were pregnant at the same time. Although I wasn't legally or contractually obligated to, I decided to offer them both paid maternity leave.
I just felt it was the right thing to do.
They'd both proven their loyalty to me, and well, life happens. You need to look after one another. But that's the biggest problem with our society at the moment, people just don't care about one another.
We are a small business and we all have a personal relationship with one another. I didn't think about their circumstances in terms of maternity leave as such. I would have reacted the same way if they'd had a car accident and needed time off.
We talk openly about this stuff. One staff member had told me in advance she was hoping to have a baby. I took an overseas holiday for 3 months, and we discussed that in lieu of a bonus for her handling extra responsibilities whilst I was away I would pay her maternity leave. Now, as my accountant reminds me, it would have been much cheaper to pay her a bonus, but I preferred to do it this way. It's about more than money.
My business was able to support this extra cost, and I think that in the long run I'll benefit from keeping good staff.
That said, when another staff member then found themselves unexpectedly pregnant, it was a real financial strain. And if more of my staff had happened to fall pregnant at the same time I mightn't have been able to cope or offer them all the same benefits at the same time.
With that in mind it would have been nice if I had been able to get some assistance form the government. After all, when the employer is paying the welfare system doesn't need to help out.
I'm also lucky that due to the nature of my business I can be a bit flexible, about hours, rosters, working from home, job-sharing, all sorts of things. But depending on what you do, that's not always the case.
Most modern women seem to expect that they will be able to return to work afterwards and everything be the same. But I don't think anyone's life is ever the same after they have kids, and you just can't predict how it's going to affect your priorities.
Despite my misgivings, I have no doubt that a government subsidised paid maternity leave scheme would encourage a lot of small to medium businesses to offer more women full time contracts. Earlier I criticised employees who rort maternity leave schemes, but there are also employers who dump women when they get pregnant, and that's just not right either.
Women getting pregnant is an inevitable fact of life - so it's an inevitable part of business. But it is possible for both parties to plan for pregnancy and save up for leave in the same way as holiday or sick pay.
My real argument is that there has to be an element of user pays, otherwise, the system will be ripe for abuse. It's good to help people who really need it but you don't want to be providing an incentive for irresponsible parenting. Like, for example the baby bonus which I think has been a disaster.
Maybe we could work out a scheme along similar lines to superannuation.
Women and men could pay in to a "parenting" fund throughout their working lives. Perhaps the government could match personal contributions. Employers could contribute also. This would become another incentive employers could use as a bargaining chip when hiring prospective employees. People could then get access to their parenting fund when they had a child. Just an idea that could be developed?
Richard Knuppe's "real job" is as a succesful software developer, he also runs an oline holiday property booking agency. His interests include breeding race horses. Richard now lives on the NSW coast with his partner Judy.
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Current proposal under review is an 18 week paid leave
Richard, I am not sure whose suggestion regarding the 12 month paid leave your are referring to at the beginning of your blog.
The current proposal under review by Government is the Productivity Commission's Draft Inquiry Report "Paid Parental Leave" which actually proposes a statutory paid maternity leave for a maximum of 18 weeks, with an additional two weeks of paternity leave reserved for the father.
The full report can be reviewed here.
some important insights
Thanks Richard - it's rare to see the point of view of the small business person stated with such clarity.
However, I'd like to suggest we take the user pays argument one step forward. Your efforts to support you employees decision to have kids are the right thing to do as an employer if for no other reason than it will create good will and make it easier for you to find staff and keep staff.
What we're forgetting though is that supporting women (and men) - whether through some kind of government subsidy or investment mechanisms or whatever - to have children is actually an investment in all our furtures. Right now we are facing a serious demographic challenge - The average number of children per women dropped below two in 1976 and never recovered - we haven't been able to reproduce ourselves since the seventies, and as a result we need to figure out ways to support a large number of retired, retiring and elderly and unwell Australians with an ever shrinking workforce.
As a result we need to seriously look for ways not only to increase the number of children being born, we also need to make it possible for women who are currently in their 20s and 30s to move seemlessly into and out of the workforce while they are having children. I agree that the baby bonus has been misguided - although it must be said, since it was introduced there has been an upturn albeit slight in the number of babies - but I do think there should be some way of ensuring it isn spent on kids, and education and mortgage repayments and not on big screen TVs (which is perhaps the worst possible investment a young family could make int heir childs furture).
The point that is often lost in this debate is that the women who are sacrificing income to have kids are actually subsidising all the childless singles and couples who are contributing to their capacity to consume, but ignoring the very real demographic, economic and social imperative of brigning new people into the world.
While on a microecnomic level it makes no sense for individuals to have children, or for businesses to support them in doing so, at a macroeconomic level we need to figure out how to make it an attractive option both for the indiviudals and for the businesses involved.
Like you I don't believe in hand outs - so I don't see why childless couple with a couple of investment properties who live next door should benefit from the economic sacrifices I've made in actually having children, and spending time bringing them up to ensure they are functional members of society.
The argument works both ways - so rather than get lost in details and recriminations we need to take a high level point of view - we need kids - we need more kids - and we need mums and dads to keep working at the peak of their productivity thought their child breaing and rearing years - so we need to look for policies which will make becomming a working parent an attractive option and I'm afraid paid maternity leave is an important pillar of that approach.
JV Douglas
Most Business Needs Rules to Play Fair
It is fantastic to hear about an instance where paid maternity leave arrangements can be made.
Unfortunately most business's don't feel it is their responsibility, or that they can afford to, burden themselves with this extra operating cost.
Which is a shame for them as well as society, as the skills shortage heightens, employers who distinguish themselves from the pack in this way will get the best recruits.
We need an institutionalised paid maternity leave scheme to be makes things fair, not just for parents, but for employers like yourself who are putting their money on the line to do the right thing.
Sally Rose
Maturnity leave pay not the real solution
There is a demand for maternity leave pay. The reason for this is that the cost of living, in particularly housing, is making it unaffordable to have children.
During the baby boom years, mortgage assessment was on a single income, not two. And this was the foundation of the baby boom. Due to lending practices been changed to that of two incomes, it has effectively doubled the price of property, doubled the mortgage, and ensured that in order for couple to survive both must work. While housing affordability has been driven lower and lower, less people are getting married, the get married later, have children later and also have less children. Australian history of the 1880's had the second largest property boom only to now, had identical social implications.
Baby bonus / maternity leave pay is not the solution, it is a band-aid. Effectively this money will be funneled into excessive mortgage repayments. Financial institutions are the only winners. People and business pay the ultimate price. As people have a higher proportion of their income on mortgages, it means they spend less consumers goods and business suffers. Deal with the underlying cause on why people are not producing enough children - housing affordability - and then you will get another baby boom.
It's not just about supporting a baby boom
In the Good Weekend a few weeks ago Elizabeth Broderick was quoted as telling her daughters, "a man is not a financial plan". That about sums it up for me. Governemnt policy shouldn't assume women will be financially supported by a partner. I totally agree with everything Corydora has said about housing affordability. But encouraging a baby boom is not the primary reason I support a paid maternity leave scheme, for me it's a social justice issue.
Sally Rose