18 weeks at minimum wage is inadequate. 26 weeks at replacement wage is a good start. I think paternal leave “use it or lose it” is missing from the equation as well. It’s much better to have 2 parents caring for a newborn in the first few months than 1.
If the government are trying to encourage people to have children the massive elephant in the room is the cost of housing though.
Forget the activity test - get rid of means testing, too. Why are women who have worked hard to establish a career being penalized by returning to the workforce?
Child care is a necessity, not a luxury. It should be funded, like health care.
Doesn’t this mean workplaces will be less likely to hire women of a particular age lest they have to pay out a years salary?
Just seems that corps aren’t going to just agree to this because of their sense of “fairness”.
That is why it should also be equally available to fathers/partners on a “use it or lose it” basis. The “risk” of parental leave becomes even between men and women, thus one reason for hiring discrimination is removed.
This is about government funded leave, which as far as I know already is paid to the “primary care giver” and not to the mother.
Also, a reduced amount (same amount of money, but for less time - effectively just when the baby is a newborn) is available for the secondary care giver.
Where we got burned with that is the funding is means tested and based on an estimate of your income. When we actually did our tax a year later… it turned out we were not eligible. So I’d taken unpaid leave from my job and then was later forced to pay the government back all of the money that they gave me during those weeks.
If/when we have a second kid, I don’t think I’ll risk applying for government funded leave. I’ll just use my annual leave or something and deal with going a year or three without any actual break from work.
If we want this, we need to fight for it. Like the 8 hour work day, this will never be something the employers want. Though my employer does in fact offer some pretty nice maternity policies above the government minimum. Not a year or course, but appreciated all the same.
