Latest Measure to Help Working Parents
"Work life balance," has become a buzz phrase, as though there were sense in distinguishing life from work and work from life. We all know it's rubbish but that doesn't detract from the relevance of the underlying policy objective. Juggling and circus trick metaphors somehow resonate with many of the UK's workers struggling to keep their heads above water at work and the home front. As many as one in ten working men and one in seven working women are part time carers, according to the charity Carers UK.
Caring roles traditionally fall on women and contribute to continuing patterns of economic inequality in our society as caring (for a child or adult) leads many to opt for part time work. 82 per cent of the UK's part time workers are women. Thirty years after the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the government has announced its latest initiative to promote equality and deal with some of the economic realities of work and family life. 'Choice, equality and flexibility,' are claimed by the government to be at the heart of their new measures. Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson announced on 19 October that the new Work and Families Bill aims to create, "a modern framework of employment rights and responsibilities for employers and employees while minimising the impact on business."
New measures in the bill and forthcoming regulations include:
- extending Statutory Maternity Pay and Maternity Allowance to nine months from April 2007 with the ambition of moving to a year by the end of the Parliament (including extending eligibility for additional maternity leave);
- a power to introduce new paternity leave for fathers, enabling them to benefit from leave and statutory pay if the mother returns to work after six months but before the end of her maternity leave period;
- extending the right to request flexible working to carers from April 2007;
- measures to help businesses manage the administration of Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay;
- introducing 'keeping in touch days' so that where employees and employers agree, a woman on maternity leave can go into work for a few days, without losing her right to maternity leave or a week's statutory pay;
- extending the period of notice for return from maternity leave to two months enabling employees and employers to more effectively plan for return to work;
- making clear in the regulations that employers can make reasonable contact with their employees on maternity leave to help employers plan and ease the mother's return to work.
Speaking after the government's announcement, Carol Bates commented, "This new development is consistent with the established policy of encouraging men and women at all levels of society to maximise their earning capacity and encouraging increased flexibility towards working patterns. This will enable people to remain in the work environment longer. Combining parenthood with work is not easy and good parenting determines our future collective health and well being. Getting parents to help themselves and their families is a really important goal. Society, and the world of business in particular, needs parents who can manage their careers and care for future generations of people who in turn will enter the world of business. This is only going to be achieved by a flexible approach to the working contracts negotiated with workers"
Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson commented, "Today's bill delivers on our commitment to help working parents balance the demands of their job with caring for their children by introducing a modern framework of rights and responsibilities that offers real choice and flexibility."
Johnson continued, "To help mothers we will extend paid maternity leave to nine months with the aim of increasing it to a year. Increasingly fathers want to play a more active role in bringing up their children, so we will help fathers take time off when the mother returns to work by introducing a new right to paternity leave. And we will also help those who care for elderly or sick relatives by extending to them the right to request flexible working," said Johnson.
The right for fathers to have extended paternity leave when mothers return to work is particularly interesting as an example of "social engineering." By giving such rights to fathers, the government hopes to encourage more sharing of the caring side of parenting. Equality organisations like the EOC would like to alter the pattern where typically, following the birth of a child, men spend more time at work in order to compensate for the drop in income that the family suffers when a woman goes on maternity leave.
Carol Bates explained, "Providing the introduction of this change can be paced so that companies have time to prepare for it, this could be a positive transforming influence at work and in the family. It will not all happen at once of course, but over a period of time we could see more involvement by fathers around the home and family and more freedom for women to pursue their careers in the knowledge that they have committed partners on the home front. We believe it will require organisations to see this as a selling point in terms of promoting their flexibility to their workers and demonstrating their commitment to the Work Life Balance model promoted by Investors in People UK."
Further information:
EOC comment: http://www.eoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=17909 (will open in a new window)
DTI press release: http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/dti/ (will open in a new window)
Investors in People Raising the Standard (pdf)
1 December 2005
