Equality matters

It finds that the UK offers a broad set of rights on paper, but low statutory pay, complex rules and gaps in access mean many parents cannot use those rights in practice. As a result, the UK’s parental leave system risks falling further behind comparable countries in the OECD or in Europe, unless policymakers introduce better-paid, non-transferable leave for fathers and partners.

The report argues that the UK system still reinforces mothers as the default primary caregivers, and even for mothers the pay levels remain low at a flat rate after six weeks. Fathers receive just two weeks of paternity leave at the same rate. Shared Parental Leave has also failed to shift behaviour, with only around one per cent of mothers and four per cent of fathers or partners using the scheme.

Low flat-rate pay can make leave unaffordable, particularly for fathers who are often the higher earner in heterosexual couples. Transferable leave, meanwhile, tends to be taken by mothers unless fathers have an individual entitlement they lose if they do not use it.

Researchers argue that the UK should move beyond attempts to improve awareness of Shared Parental Leave and instead redesign the system around three principles: adequately paid leave, individual non-transferable rights for fathers and partners, and better alignment between parental leave and childcare provision. Australia, for instance, has expanded paid parental leave, reserved ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ leave for each parent and begun paying pension contributions on government-funded parental leave.

The report concludes that parental leave should be designed to support gender equality in both paid work and unpaid care, rather than relying on families to absorb the cost of an underfunded system.

For the full report visit www.kcl.ac.uk/giwl/assets/parental-leave-systems-review-uk-aus-pl.pdf