In the UK, maternity leave works like this:
It works this way:
It's even clearer here and here. The mother is also entitled to:
In Sweden, it comprises part government and part employer funding. In Australia, there is a proposal:
Naturally, women are fearful that employers will take a dim view of extended maternity leave and regulations are in place to prevent this.
Right, so back in the UK, a small business employer taking on female staff gains net 4.5% of the amount paid if she gets pregnant and has the child. Now to calculate costs to the business. Whilst it is reclaimable, it is not instantly payable and there is a net loss associated with it overall. This is why SME businesses are crying out loudly against it because the figures, whilst appearing to add up in the long run, in fact cause short term difficulties, not least in having to employ another staff member, who in turn has certain rights.
Personally, this blogger thinks there must be a sharing of the load between state, employer and the employed herself [with partner makes it easier]. Ellee's call for extended maternity was never in dispute here. However, one comment from a woman in the Australian workplace [but the principle is the same] put a different point of view:
Another commenter put this proposal:
Women in Britain would claim that because of the measly package offered at present, employees are very much contributing, in effect, even given the paternity provisions and this blogger agrees with that. But tripling is not only going to cripple business, it is going to make an employer increasingly steer clear of child-bearing age women or else implement pre-employment conditions to minimize huge payouts in any financial year.
May we stop and catch our breath?
Trace our society and see what has really happened in the past decades. In the early part of last century, the extended family was the basic societal unit. In the late 50s, the nuclear family was the basic societal unit. Today, singles abound in little boxes across the west.
If we stop to count the cost of this, in financial terms, it is obvious that it is unsustainable. Financial strictures force people into finding solutions and the obvious solution is the extended family, which is quite socialist in nature. From each according to ability and to each according to needs. We are heading back to this as the squeeze grips harder and harder.
Two things come under intense pressure - the government disbursement of tax money and roofs over people's heads - there are not enough flats and houses and what there are can't be afforded. When money derived from taxes is disbursed, every taxpayer has a right to a say in how it is disbursed. Maternity leave is given to people in work and the businesses giving it have the right to say how it should be disbursed.
Government policy is squeezing businesses through tax rates anyway, let alone through schemes like SMP and this most certainly snuffs out incentive - hence the flight of business offshore and overseas. Everyone, businesses included, are hurting because everything is ultimately interconnected. Government is only taxation anyway [plus autocratic legislation]. It all becomes us again in the end.
Those two commenters just quoted above bring out an alien concept in today's world - that the having of a child is a major financial burden which needs planning and financial preparation by the couple, utilizing all family resources possible before the event. Government needs to contribute somewhat, as do employers but the decision is the couple's in the end and that entails sacrifices and responsibilities.
Whose responsibility is having a child in the end?
Where it gets really complicated is a girl who wants to live in her own flat with a child she had and where the father has departed. This is sheer madness at the personal level because the figures for supporting it don't add up. I know two girls in this situation and the family has chipped in to support her as best they can. A girl going it totally alone, on the other hand, is in an invidious position and it is now rampant in society, the US figure being 30%.
So the girl eventually is either forced back into the family fold if she has one or if she doesn't, why not? There might have been an abusive father or there might be the simple desire to be independent. That is then paid for by state and employer. In other words, the taxpayer foots the bill for all these unmarried mothers.
Again I say that the state should do this to a point, by default but where is that cut-off point? This could go on forever, this train of thought but it is all halted by one truth - the cost of living swamps any income in this day and age. The moment the banks created a situation where the price of major items like houses and cars reached an unpayable level, then the only solution was credit.
This, in turn, broke the nexus between price and income and enabled house prices, for example, to go through the stratosphere. This is precisely what is happening in Russia today. Once on that path, we get where we currently are.
Everybody is indicating this but it's not happening. Who has the power to change this? Governments do plus the people they are dependent on - the banks. It always comes back to the banks who should be just repositories protecting people's cash but in fact have become much, much more. Will they voluntarily crank back prices?
Not on their own they won't. So it needs steely resolve from government, responding to public opinion, to force prices back to affordable levels and the last leader I can recall trying anything of this nature was Andrew Jackson. In the crash which would inevitably follow this government move, the whole formula is redefined.
It won't happen though because the alternative, the nanny state, confers power on an upper echelon and this blogger does not see that echelon as altruistic or philanthropic in nature.
Calling for the tripling of maternity leave is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. It's relocating the hurt to another sector of society. There's a case for all to contribute - yes - but this is contributing to what is an out of kilter and unsustainable system in the first place.
Welshcakes is a champion of the single person being supported and she took umbrage at me putting such a person low on the list. The single person does have the burden of upkeeping a household, with all attendant costs and total costs, compared to a family, not that much less. She may also have a dependent - her pet and that needs paying for. Those who have not been in this situation cannot understand how a pet assumes a role of great importance in such a household and needs to be paid for. But it does need that and the owner gladly pays.
No one is asking for government and employer to pay for pets but the single is asking for a fairer redistribution overall. That was why I suggested 70% of the rate which the government pays families also going to singles. For this, I was called an ignorant fascist [see comments on the last maternity post].
That last maternity post called for a situation-based payout and why not? Should the state or employer pay for a person's voluntary decision to be be single or only for unavoidable singleness? One is a choice and the other a necessity.
Who determines this and for how much? Again I was called an ignorant fascist for suggesting that government [who delegates this to social security], essentially means a committee of men and women. You can't have it both ways. If the government pays out, then men and women within that government must decide how much. How is this fascist?
And one cannot ignore the macro-view - that the proliferation of single person households cannot be sustained in a society already groaning under the burden, let alone the population increases due to virtually free relocation within the EU, immigration and births.
What is fascist is the state's gathering of all into a nanny state where the cost of living is entirely unsustainable. That's where the real fascism is.
All pregnant employees are entitled to take 52 weeks' statutory maternity leave around the birth of their child. However, an employee must meet certain qualifying conditions to receive statutory maternity pay (SMP). You, as the employer, pay the SMP but you can reclaim all or most of it from the government.
It works this way:
* SMP - SAP - SPP
o if total gross NI contributions over the year are equal to or less than £45,000 100% plus 4.5% compensation can be reclaimed
o if total gross NI contributions over the year are greater than £45,000 only 92% can be reclaimed with no compensation percentage
* SSP
o if 13% of the gross NI paid in the tax month is less than than the SSP paid, the difference between the two can be reclaimed
It's even clearer here and here. The mother is also entitled to:
# Child Benefit
# Tax Credits
# Child Trust Funds
In Sweden, it comprises part government and part employer funding. In Australia, there is a proposal:
The paid maternity leave scheme recommended by NFAW to the Productivity Commission will put small business on an equal footing with large organisations. The proposed scheme provides all employees with 28 weeks paid parental leave and 4 weeks paid paternity leave paid through a fund made up of a government contribution and a pooled levy on all employers of less than 1 per cent of labour costs.
Small to medium enterprises are at a disadvantage compared to Governments and big businesses in recruiting staff in a tight labour market when it comes to the attractiveness of remuneration packages they are able to offer. This disadvantage will continue if the government introduces a scheme that requires employers to replace all, or part, of the income of women on paid maternity leave.
Naturally, women are fearful that employers will take a dim view of extended maternity leave and regulations are in place to prevent this.
Right, so back in the UK, a small business employer taking on female staff gains net 4.5% of the amount paid if she gets pregnant and has the child. Now to calculate costs to the business. Whilst it is reclaimable, it is not instantly payable and there is a net loss associated with it overall. This is why SME businesses are crying out loudly against it because the figures, whilst appearing to add up in the long run, in fact cause short term difficulties, not least in having to employ another staff member, who in turn has certain rights.
Personally, this blogger thinks there must be a sharing of the load between state, employer and the employed herself [with partner makes it easier]. Ellee's call for extended maternity was never in dispute here. However, one comment from a woman in the Australian workplace [but the principle is the same] put a different point of view:
Rebekah of Melbourne posted at 11:53am June 13, 2008
I am a 29yo female & would like to start a family in the next couple of years, however I do not believe that there should be paid maternity leave. It is my choice to have children & I do not expect my employer or the government to pay me whilst on leave. My partner & I have worked out that we can afford to live on his wage, however we are only able to do so because we bought a small older house in the outer suburbs & we don't have expensive cars. I also agree with the comments regarding potential discrimation against young female job seekers - I know that if I owned a small business I would avoid hiring young females if there was paid maternity leave.
Another commenter put this proposal:
Mel of WA Posted at 9:42am June 14, 2008
Employers should not be funding this scheme from their own pockets, and the taxpayer should not be expected to fund it either. What should happen is: either the employee makes arrangements to save up or live on their partner's wage so they can afford to have their child and take a year off work, or the employee works for four years at 80% pay, and then takes the fifth year off as maternity leave at 80% pay. That way the employer is not out of pocket by having to pay maternity leave as well as pay someone else to do the absent employee's job nor is the taxpayer is funding someone's decision to have kids.
Women in Britain would claim that because of the measly package offered at present, employees are very much contributing, in effect, even given the paternity provisions and this blogger agrees with that. But tripling is not only going to cripple business, it is going to make an employer increasingly steer clear of child-bearing age women or else implement pre-employment conditions to minimize huge payouts in any financial year.
May we stop and catch our breath?
Trace our society and see what has really happened in the past decades. In the early part of last century, the extended family was the basic societal unit. In the late 50s, the nuclear family was the basic societal unit. Today, singles abound in little boxes across the west.
If we stop to count the cost of this, in financial terms, it is obvious that it is unsustainable. Financial strictures force people into finding solutions and the obvious solution is the extended family, which is quite socialist in nature. From each according to ability and to each according to needs. We are heading back to this as the squeeze grips harder and harder.
Two things come under intense pressure - the government disbursement of tax money and roofs over people's heads - there are not enough flats and houses and what there are can't be afforded. When money derived from taxes is disbursed, every taxpayer has a right to a say in how it is disbursed. Maternity leave is given to people in work and the businesses giving it have the right to say how it should be disbursed.
Government policy is squeezing businesses through tax rates anyway, let alone through schemes like SMP and this most certainly snuffs out incentive - hence the flight of business offshore and overseas. Everyone, businesses included, are hurting because everything is ultimately interconnected. Government is only taxation anyway [plus autocratic legislation]. It all becomes us again in the end.
Those two commenters just quoted above bring out an alien concept in today's world - that the having of a child is a major financial burden which needs planning and financial preparation by the couple, utilizing all family resources possible before the event. Government needs to contribute somewhat, as do employers but the decision is the couple's in the end and that entails sacrifices and responsibilities.
Whose responsibility is having a child in the end?
Where it gets really complicated is a girl who wants to live in her own flat with a child she had and where the father has departed. This is sheer madness at the personal level because the figures for supporting it don't add up. I know two girls in this situation and the family has chipped in to support her as best they can. A girl going it totally alone, on the other hand, is in an invidious position and it is now rampant in society, the US figure being 30%.
In the United Kingdom, there are 1.9 million single parents as of 2005, with 3.1 million children.[6] About 1 out of 4 families with dependent children are single-parent families. According to a survey done by the United Kingdom, 9% of single parents in the UK are fathers,[7] [8][9][10] UK poverty figures show that 47% of single parent families are below the Government-defined poverty line (after housing costs).[11]
So the girl eventually is either forced back into the family fold if she has one or if she doesn't, why not? There might have been an abusive father or there might be the simple desire to be independent. That is then paid for by state and employer. In other words, the taxpayer foots the bill for all these unmarried mothers.
Again I say that the state should do this to a point, by default but where is that cut-off point? This could go on forever, this train of thought but it is all halted by one truth - the cost of living swamps any income in this day and age. The moment the banks created a situation where the price of major items like houses and cars reached an unpayable level, then the only solution was credit.
This, in turn, broke the nexus between price and income and enabled house prices, for example, to go through the stratosphere. This is precisely what is happening in Russia today. Once on that path, we get where we currently are.
The unit of income and the unit of cost must now be completely redefined and brought back to affordable levels.
Everybody is indicating this but it's not happening. Who has the power to change this? Governments do plus the people they are dependent on - the banks. It always comes back to the banks who should be just repositories protecting people's cash but in fact have become much, much more. Will they voluntarily crank back prices?
Not on their own they won't. So it needs steely resolve from government, responding to public opinion, to force prices back to affordable levels and the last leader I can recall trying anything of this nature was Andrew Jackson. In the crash which would inevitably follow this government move, the whole formula is redefined.
It won't happen though because the alternative, the nanny state, confers power on an upper echelon and this blogger does not see that echelon as altruistic or philanthropic in nature.
Calling for the tripling of maternity leave is rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. It's relocating the hurt to another sector of society. There's a case for all to contribute - yes - but this is contributing to what is an out of kilter and unsustainable system in the first place.
Welshcakes is a champion of the single person being supported and she took umbrage at me putting such a person low on the list. The single person does have the burden of upkeeping a household, with all attendant costs and total costs, compared to a family, not that much less. She may also have a dependent - her pet and that needs paying for. Those who have not been in this situation cannot understand how a pet assumes a role of great importance in such a household and needs to be paid for. But it does need that and the owner gladly pays.
No one is asking for government and employer to pay for pets but the single is asking for a fairer redistribution overall. That was why I suggested 70% of the rate which the government pays families also going to singles. For this, I was called an ignorant fascist [see comments on the last maternity post].
That last maternity post called for a situation-based payout and why not? Should the state or employer pay for a person's voluntary decision to be be single or only for unavoidable singleness? One is a choice and the other a necessity.
Who determines this and for how much? Again I was called an ignorant fascist for suggesting that government [who delegates this to social security], essentially means a committee of men and women. You can't have it both ways. If the government pays out, then men and women within that government must decide how much. How is this fascist?
And one cannot ignore the macro-view - that the proliferation of single person households cannot be sustained in a society already groaning under the burden, let alone the population increases due to virtually free relocation within the EU, immigration and births.
What is fascist is the state's gathering of all into a nanny state where the cost of living is entirely unsustainable. That's where the real fascism is.
Yes, a real buggers muddle, or if you prefer "Heart-Break Ridge" language, a Cluster Fuck.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that needs mentioning, in these days of "equality", is the interests of the staff around the preggy.
They aid as she becomes less efficient. They aid her (temporary?) replacement, who may have little interest in learning the job, being aware that it is "Cover", then aid in retraining the returning staff member, in (possible) retraining, and certainly in the frequent absences due to "family factors".
I know many currently who are extremely pissed with the situation.
As a past employer, as a principle, I would never employ females of child bearing years, and the older ones had to be free of encumbrances.
The law?
It's an asshole!
Naturally, I expect flack from your female readers, but who gives a sh*t.
On a broader level, we are where we are because of global wage arbitrage. The only way to satisfy aspirations created by gov'ts/advertising, was to increase credit (debt). So prices rose.
Maybe if we called credit cards, "Debt Cards" instead, folks wouldn't be so damn stupid.
But then, the name was all part of the con.
Now it's unwinding financially.
Increases in transport costs will create a repatriation of certain manufacturing industries, but the wage arbitrage will continue at a more limited level.
Next comes the employment unwind, and it will be far more severe than the pundits are preaching.
Markets will crash.
At the end market sanity will prevail.
Oh, by the way, the $100 surge in the price of gold the other day was in response to an article in the Chinese Gov't newspaper mouth piece concerning a new global currency, NOT the Dollar.
And then we see structures to contain banks toxic paper, and shorting prohibitions, and a market rally with a gold take-down by the very guys protected from shorting.
Well, the boyz had to move quick, didn't they?
You couldn't make this stuff up.
Now, to return to the theme, - .
Time for above benefits to be extirpated. Return to rational policies.
So there you go, female posters, fire away, I need to hear more absolute non-sense, I need a good laugh!
The Nanny state, and the "I am entitled" attitude, bred from the nanny state, is about to go arse over apex, and a good thing too!
Female "ex-readers", I now fear, Anon.
ReplyDeleteBreathe in, breathe out, someone is going to blow a gasket LOL
ReplyDeleteI doubt it James.
ReplyDeleteI mean, how can a smaller company keep a job open for more than a year, when the replacement cover, as you said, is also acquiring rights?
Existing staff in a 24/7 production environment get pissed at always being rostered at weekends because the new mother is effectively at the beck and call of the infant!
Don't you think it's time for a little common sense to replace the stupid legislation?
Politicians are adept at sequestrating other folk's tax £, and gifting it to "disadvantaged" sectors. It's called buying votes.
First you classify them as disadvantaged, by whatever means, then you shower them with treasure, therebye buying their fealty.
Eventually the "disadvantaged" form a voting majority when added to all the civil serpents, errrm, servants, and the country goes down the crapper. Just like now.
Time for somebody to call it as it is.
Concerning your fears.
If they think their case is worthy of contention, they'll answer, and I'll laugh.
If not, why shout so loud in the first place, or is shouting the totality of their argument.
Com'on, Ms Acle, and others, where's the meat, show me the meat.
YEEHHAAA!
OT OT
ReplyDeleteReference your previous blog
You seen this headline , James?
Looks like the black hole will be in their budget
Wonder whose head is on the block for this.
I figure this to be extremely important.
ReplyDeleteHere
OT ... Oh yes, I saw the Hadron news. Precisely. That's exactly what is meant by big ideas but incompetence in implementing them. They're playing with people's lives here.
ReplyDeleteOT 2 ... the China France thing. Well, it's one member family moving up the list of the other 12. Obviously jockeying for position come the crash.
ReplyDeleteOh, James, you naughty fellow.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned the Crash. No-one's supposed to mention that.
Slap on the wrist for you. :-)
Hey, James.
ReplyDeleteYou wanna study money and its applications through history?
Just joshing you, mate. :)
Well thank you for the explanation about Maternity leave in the UK. What a complicated situation, employer pays but is reimbursed by government, mostly, but later.
ReplyDeleteHowever your solution of case by case is totally unworkable and even more bureaucratic. Imagine the little tin pot bureaucrats making individual decisions, no one would ever get paid anything and decisions would be totally different depending who was handling the case. I know it sounds fair in principle but in practice it is unworkable.
There is no point in harping on about the extended family picking up the slack since most people do not have extended families nearby and let's face it they are probably all stretched to the limit financially themselves.
Now as one who never had paid maternity leave (it did not even exist then) but stayed home for seven years with children, gradually returning to work, part time and then full time, I still support paid maternity leave for young mothers but I believe it should be a government funded scheme. Hence it removes the total burden from the employer, although here since everyone, employee or employer contributes to the Employment/Unemployment insurance employers are paying premiums but it does not matter whether employee is male or female they pay the same. So ten female employees or ten male employees, it does not matter. Now if your ten female employees all have children at the same time you are hooped as you seek to replace them for one year but how likely is that. Your male employees could break their legs, have a heart attack, get cancer.
You have muddied the waters with all kinds of other issues, like single parents being the working poor and even support for singles. What does that mean? In what circumstances?
Everyone in these days, male or female works or is seeking work until they retire. Yes some women choose to stay at home with children either paying the price themselves or others are state supported if they have no partner or family income. Men or women who are unemployed receive government support (in theory, I know the reality is somewhat different)as do those who are disabled in whatever way. The rest of us work till retirement age and either receive government pensions or those we have earned through employment. So where are singles missing out?
You know we all pay taxes to support things we will never benefit from. People who do not have children pay school taxes, we pay health taxes whether we are sick or well and so on. That's what makes society work, not perfectly but on the whole.
Ugh, my comment is as muddy as your post.
Incidentally paid maternity leave is almost non existent in the USA. My daughter, a teacher and in a union, received 12 weeks unpaid leave and although she could have afforded to stay home she had to return to work if she wanted to keep her job because 12 weeks is all they are required to hold it open for. So her child went to day care at the end of the 12 weeks and back to work she went.
As I said before, it is not an easy job to come up with a scheme that is fair and equitable to all (or even a majority) and that all will agree is so.
Well, I agree with anon's point about the difficulty for employers having to keep the job open. I also like Rebakah's comment in the post. Having children is, after all, a choice in most cases.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the empathy, James. Perhaps I should explain what I mean by support for single people: I mean a little compassion sometimes, a recognition that we have problems, too and some leave entitlement when a parent is suddenly very sick. We, too, have to live somewhere or other and , whilst we may not have the responsibilities of having a partner, I wish people would understsnd that that means we don't have the support of one, either!
So how would you propose that we tackle the population problem? Western Europe, in which the UK is included, has a problem with not enough babies being produced. Make it even less financially viable, and the birth rate goes down, no?
ReplyDeleteWould it be that we should continue to import young workers? Does that not bring problems of its own? Some might say these problems are greater than the problems that small business face with maternity pay. Without workers to pay tax, how do we pay for the bulging pension bill?
Not such an easy problem to solve, I am afraid.
I think I largely agree other than saying a man could be a stay at home parent as much as a woman, but basically a family ought to be able to live and have a normal life on one adult wage, and that is impossible in the UK, for most people. I published about my income a few weeks back - imagine trying to raise a family on that and I earn only just below the average wage. There are many people who have a great deal less. Children need someone to raise them.. thats obvious and our economy means they dont have that.
ReplyDeleteHave read right down to Mutley and sympathize with his plight too.
ReplyDeleteJMB, you said:
You have muddied the waters with all kinds of other issues, like single parents being the working poor and even support for singles. What does that mean? In what circumstances?
The trouble is that the waters are very muddied by htemselves and seemingly unrelated issues do impinge on other areas indirectly and in a macro sense as well.
I don't know the solution, other than a complete change in governmental thinking.
I don't know the solution, other than a complete change in governmental thinking.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem, James, government thinking.
If they would just stop thinking, and meddling and vote buying, in every damn thing, we could get rid of 8500 sodding quangos, and 100s of 1000s of civil serpents.
Imagine, 800,000 civil serpents on £25,000 pa, creating no economic value, and often negative economic value, down to 800,000 unemployed on means tested benefits, creating no economic value. Much cheaper, ain't it?
Buckets full of sand removed from economic cogs, at a stroke.
Then a sweeping reform of fabian legislation, rebuild industry, and in five years the country is on its feet again.
Stumbling, maybe, but not slithering like now.
If I had the authority I would.....
(Smile)
My friend here is in business and has a very simple philosophy - if the government touch it, they bugger it up.
ReplyDelete