Credit: Keira Burton via Pexels.

8 March 2023

By Margaret O’Brien

In a recent BBC Radio 4 debate, the Right Honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg MP claimed that the UK has the best maternity rights in the world. The programme was aired on the 31^st January, to debate the third anniversary of Brexit. In it, he also assured the audience that rescinding EU employment regulations would have no detrimental impact on British working parents – and that in comparison to our European neighbours we in the UK already benefit from exceptional maternity rights, with laws originating from the UK itself.

In fact, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s claim of world-leading maternity rights for Britain is an odd statement and contrary to international evidence. (more…)

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21 September 2022

By Alison Koslowski, Peter Moss and Margaret O’Brien

In 2015, the UK government introduced Shared Parental Leave (SPL), a measure to encourage more equal parenting. It enabled mothers to transfer up to 50 of their 52 weeks of Maternity leave, and some of the associated benefit, to fathers.

A government evaluation began in 2018, but has yet to deliver. It is clear, though, that SPL has not worked. A minister, in 2017, told the House of Commons’ Women & Equalities Committee that she ‘would regard anything over 20% [take up] as very encouraging’. A new analysis by Maternity Action comes up with the discouraging news that in 2021/22, ‘take-up among an assumed 285,000 eligible fathers was just 2.8%…just 8,100 fathers’. Just 0.66% of total public expenditure on Maternity and Paternity leave went on SPL.

Experience from countries with more successful leave policies provides pointers to what has gone wrong. That experience is available in the recently published 18^th annual international review on leave policies, produced by a network of experts led by Professor Alison Koslowski, director
of UCL’s Thomas Coram Research Unit. The review brings together details of parenting leaves and other support for employed parents in 49 (more…)

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14 September 2021

By Peter Moss and Alison Koslowski

Work-life balance and gender equality are firmly on today’s political agenda, nationally and internationally. Key to achieving both is parenting leave, including maternity, paternity and parental leave, as well as leave for parents to care for sick children. Our new report, freely available online, provides an invaluable source of information about parenting leave, in the UK and 46 other countries.

The annual international review on leave policies is produced by a network of experts from many countries, across six continents including nearly all of Europe. As well as full details of parenting leaves in all 47 countries covered and cross-national tables, the review has information on recent developments in leave policy, take-up, the relationship between leave policies and early childhood services, plus a section on responses to Covid, covering early childhood services, schools, changes to leave policies and other support for parents.

At 645 pages, the 17^th annual international review of the leave network is hard to summarise. Here are just a few tasters. What’s immediately striking is the great diversity in how countries design and implement leave policies – even between member states of the European Union, where directives set minimum standards for (more…)

Peter Moss.

Leave policies for parents (maternity, paternity and parental leave) are high on today’s policy agenda, not only in higher income countries but around the world. A recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) survey found all bar two countries (Papua New Guinea and the USA) had some paid maternity leave, while 79 had paternity leave and 66 parental leave.

This month, the EU is expected to adopt a new Work-Life Balance Directive, which sets a number of new or higher standards for parental, paternity and carer’s leave, and the right to request flexible working arrangements – an initiative so far ignored by the British media.

Yet despite this attention, many issues remain about how best to make leave policies effective and inclusive in a fast-changing world and to ensure they support a more equal and sustainable relationship between care, employment and gender.

These are the subjects of a new book published on April 17 – Parental Leave and Beyond: new international developments, current issues and future directions. It’s the product of a (more…)