Gender Disparity in Parental Leave
Stark gendered disparity in the allocation of parental responsibilities, linked to insufficient statutory paternity leave provisions.
Source spread
Where this theme appears
This theme appears across 3 independent accountability sources, so the source mix matters as much as the headline total.
104 committee recs
1 PHSO decision
Browse by source
Source-grouped records are useful for tracing where a concern came from. Large sections show the 50 strongest matches for that source; counts still show the full theme total.
Select committee recommendations(104)— showing 50 strongest matches
#33 —
Recommendation: We recommend the GEO and EHRC explore the feasibility of reporting on parental leave policies in addition to gender gaps in furlough and redundancies for 2020/21 to supplement the information on pay and bonuses. We also urge the Government to …
Response attribution not verified
#4 —
Recommendation: The proxy voting scheme for parental absence is a huge step forward for gender sensitivity in the House of Commons. We strongly welcome the scheme as a permanent feature of the package of support for parent MPs. However, we note …
Response status not verified
#49 — Extend statutory parental bereavement leave and pay to employees experiencing pre-24-week pregnancy losses
Recommendation: recommendation We intend to table amendments to the Employment Rights Bill in the name of our Chair for consideration at Report stage. The amendments are set out in annex B of this report. They seek to extend the same entitlements …
Response attribution not verified
#48 — Substantial gaps in employer pregnancy loss provision necessitate a minimum legal standard for paid leave
Recommendation: conclusion While there have been incremental improvements in recent years, substantial gaps in employer-led provision remain. The case for a minimum standard in law is overwhelming. A period of paid bereavement leave should be available to all women and partners …
Response attribution not verified
#47 — Promote benefits of generous pre-24-week pregnancy loss leave policies and strengthen awareness guidance
Recommendation: recommendation There has been good progress among employers in recent years in acknowledging miscarriage as a bereavement. An increasing number are establishing excellent pregnancy loss policies, including generous and flexible periods of paid leave for women and partners. The benefits, …
Response attribution not verified
#11 — Amend Employment Rights Bill to align Maternity Allowance with Statutory Maternity Pay.
Recommendation: The Employment Rights Bill should be amended to bring Maternity Allowance into line with Statutory Maternity Pay. This would remove the inherent unfairness that means that, during maternity leave, women in employment can undertake unlimited self-employed work but restricts the …
Response attribution not verified
#23 — Publish transparent data on gender equality outcomes and parental leave take-up by gender
Recommendation: The Government’s review should have gender equality at its heart. Countries which provide a substantial period of well-paid leave for fathers and other parents have on average a four-percentage point smaller gender pay gap than those that allow less than …
Response attribution not verified
#21 — Commit to meaningful reforms of the parental leave system in the medium term
Recommendation: The Government has said the parental leave system is broken and promised to launch a “full review”. It is clear that the system has some fundamental failings, including low statutory pay across the board; inadequate leave periods for fathers and …
Response attribution not verified
#19 — Address inequality for single parent families by allowing reallocation of co-parent leave entitlements.
Recommendation: In reforming the parental leave system, the Government must address inequality for single parent families. Unlike in many developed countries, single parents do not receive any portion of the paid leave that would be available to the household if they …
Response attribution not verified
#18 — Include kinship carers within the statutory paid parental leave system, considering costs and benefits.
Recommendation: The Government’s review must include consideration of the needs of kinship carers, with a view to including them in the paid parental leave system. This should include consideration of the costs and wider benefits of implementing statutory paid leave for …
Response attribution not verified
#15 — Simplify or remove Shared Parental Leave's complex eligibility criteria to widen access.
Recommendation: The Government must consider steps to address flaws in SPL, increase take up and widen access. The Government’s review must examine the function and necessity of SPL’s complex eligibility criteria, with a view to simplifying or removing the employment status, …
Response attribution not verified
#14 — Shared Parental Leave benefits are outweighed by complex eligibility criteria and low take-up.
Recommendation: Shared Parental Leave (SPL) has clear benefits for couples who are able to access it. SPL enables a range of flexible options in how parents share their parental responsibilities and balance these with working life. It is the only aspect …
Response attribution not verified
#11 — Reduce cultural and societal barriers preventing fathers, especially working-class, from taking parental leave.
Recommendation: Alongside reforms of statutory paternity pay and leave entitlements, the Government’s review must consider steps it can take to reduce wider cultural and societal barriers to fathers taking more leave. It should in particularly consider steps to reduce cultural barriers …
Response attribution not verified
#10 — Services for new parents remain highly gendered, often marginalising men's caring roles.
Recommendation: The design and staffing of services for new parents caring for babies is highly gendered and can exclude or marginalise men, compounding cultural barriers to them taking a greater role in caring for their children. (Conclusion, Paragraph 69)
Response attribution not verified
#9 — Lower income fathers face additional cultural barriers to taking parental leave
Recommendation: While there is evidence of appetite for more leave among fathers across occupational and income groups, fathers in lower income and working-class occupational groups may face additional cultural barriers to taking leave. These households and communities are more likely to …
Response attribution not verified
#8 — Introduce a Paternity Allowance equivalent to Maternity Allowance for self-employed fathers
Recommendation: Lack of provision for self-employed parents, particularly fathers and other parents, is a key flaw in the system. Given the substantial economic contribution of self-employed fathers, it is grossly unfair to exclude them. Lack of provision causes financial hardship and …
Response attribution not verified
#7 — Increase paid statutory paternity leave to six weeks and assess making a portion compulsory
Recommendation: The Government’s review must consider a feasible plan to incrementally increase the period of paid paternity leave, drawing on lessons from recent reform programmes overseas, for example in Spain. As an initial medium- term objective, it should set out a …
Response attribution not verified
#6 — Prioritise extending statutory paternity leave to address gender disparity in parental responsibilities
Recommendation: There is very strong evidence from around the world and from UK employers’ gender equal schemes that providing fathers and other parents with an extended period of sustainably paid statutory leave typically transforms take up. Extending paternity leave therefore has …
Response attribution not verified
#5 — UK paternity leave is inadequate, entrenching gender stereotypes and harming families
Recommendation: Since introducing up to two weeks of paid statutory paternity leave over 20 years ago, the UK has fallen far behind many comparable countries. We now have one of the worst leave offers in the developed world for fathers and …
Response attribution not verified
#4 — Legislate for a day one right to paid paternity leave in the Employment Rights Bill
Recommendation: A key objective of reform of the paid parental leave system should be to promote equality. Maternity and paternity rights should be as equal as possible, to benefit mothers, fathers and families. We therefore welcome the Government’s intention to legislate …
Response attribution not verified
#3 — Introduce phased increases to statutory parental pay, reaching 80% of average earnings
Recommendation: In the longer term, the Government must also consider a feasible approach to phased introduction of increases to statutory pay across the system, to bring rates for all working parents up to a very substantial proportion (80% or more) of …
Response attribution not verified
#2 — Raise statutory paternity pay to 90% of average earnings for first six weeks
Recommendation: A key aim of the Government’s review of the parental leave system must be to incentivise greater gender equality in parenting responsibilities. Increasing statutory paternity pay is a vital part of achieving this. As a priority, the Government must consider …
Response attribution not verified
#1 — UK statutory parental pay rates are inadequate, causing hardship and hindering take-up
Recommendation: The UK’s rate of statutory parental pay is completely out of kilter with the cost of living. At considerably less than half of the National Living Wage and real Living Wage, it has not kept pace with inflation and is …
Response attribution not verified
#33 — Reform to paternity and shared parental leave schemes is long overdue.
Recommendation: We reiterate the conclusions from our report on paternity and shared parental leave. Improved paternity leave and pay and reform to the shared parental scheme is long overdue and would directly benefit female entrepreneurs. (Recommendation, Paragraph 129)
Response attribution not verified
#32 — Reclassify Maternity Allowance as earned income for Universal Credit to support self-employed women.
Recommendation: The Department for Work and Pensions should review funding for Universal Credit and reclassify Maternity Allowance so that it is not treated as “unearned income” for the purposes of Universal Credit, so that when self-employed women access it, their Universal …
Response attribution not verified
#31 — Increase Maternity Allowance for self-employed mothers and permit more Keeping In Touch days.
Recommendation: We acknowledge the Government’s desire to protect a mother’s time with her baby. As such, we recommend that Maternity Allowance is increased for self-employed mothers in the first six weeks to bring it closer in line with Statutory Maternity Pay. …
Response attribution not verified
#30 — Review maternity legislation for self-employed women and tailor policies to support entrepreneurial aspirations.
Recommendation: Self-employed women (and those employed via their small business) are poorly served by the UK’s parental leave arrangements. As part of its Parental Leave and Pay Review, the Government should review legislation 57 pertaining to maternity through the lens of …
Response attribution not verified
#5 —
Recommendation: Like the House of Commons’ proxy voting for parental absence scheme, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s (IPSA) new MP parental leave cover fund is a major step forward. It is an important part of a raft of measures in recent …
Response status not verified
#7 —
Recommendation: In addition to the immediate financial consequences for pregnant women of being put on Statutory Sick Pay or unpaid leave—often when they should have been suspended on full pay—in many cases the loss of income that results can also mean …
Response attribution not verified
#4 —
Recommendation: The Government has suggested that women can be furloughed as a means of extending their maternity leave and delaying their return to work. However, access to the scheme is reliant on employers’ consent, rather than parents having a right to …
Response attribution not verified
#1 —
Recommendation: The Government’s response has argued that the UK’s maternity leave offer is already amongst the most generous in the world. Although up to 52 weeks leave is generous compared to other countries, the amount of maternity pay is not the …
Response attribution not verified
#19 — Establish a permanent working group on best practice in pregnancy and maternity policy in sport.
Recommendation: We recommend the DCMS, UK Sport, Sport England and the sports’ national governing bodies establish a permanent working group on best practice in pregnancy and maternity policy, including maternity leave and pay and wider policies to support pregnant sportswomen and …
Response attribution not verified
#18 — Urge Government to actively support best practices for pregnancy and maternity in sport.
Recommendation: A long-overdue culture change is taking shape in sport around pregnancy and maternity. While policies and practices being adopted in funded Olympic and Paralympic sports and, to a lesser extent, in some professional women’s sports are welcome, there is still …
Response attribution not verified
#23 — Introduce legislation to mandate salary bands on job adverts and ban salary history requests
Recommendation: While we recognise the Government’s plans for a pay transparency pilot as a first step to exploring these issues, we are concerned by the lack of progress since the pilot was announced two years ago. Given the very clear case …
Response attribution not verified
#22 — Lack of pay transparency exacerbates and perpetuates gender pay gaps
Recommendation: We have heard compelling evidence that a lack of pay transparency, particularly at the recruitment stage, exacerbates and perpetuates gender pay gaps. It is vital that employees are paid based on their experience, skills and value to an organisation, rather …
Response attribution not verified
#19 — Gender pay gap reporting fails to incentivise action for reducing large pay gaps.
Recommendation: Gender pay gap reporting has increased transparency around pay gaps, but it has not incentivised firms to take action to reduce pay gaps in the way that had been hoped and we are concerned by the evidence we heard that …
Response attribution not verified
#17 — Financial services sector has the UK's largest and slowest-closing gender pay gap.
Recommendation: The financial services sector is well paid compared to many other industries, but it has the largest gender pay gap of any sector in the UK economy and that pay gap is reducing at such a glacial pace that it …
Response attribution not verified
#10 — Encourage financial firms to equalise parental leave and publish policies, boosting uptake by men.
Recommendation: We recommend that the Government and regulators encourage all firms to consider equalising their offer of parental leave for men and women, and to actively encourage more men to take it up. We also recommend that the Government and regulators …
Response attribution not verified
#9 — Maternity leave and childcare responsibilities remain significant barriers for women in finance.
Recommendation: It is clear that maternity remains a significant barrier to women in financial services, with too many women leaving the industry after having children. We have heard that increased availability and take-up of paternity leave and shared parental leave by …
Response attribution not verified
#17 — Consider financial incentives, like overseas 'bonuses', to increase Shared Parental Leave take-up.
Recommendation: The Government’s review must consider financial incentives to increase take up of SPL. The review should examine approaches taken in overseas systems, including the German “partnership bonus” and Portugal’s “sharing 59 bonus”, which provide additional paid leave to couples in …
Response attribution not verified
#16 — Reduce notice periods for Shared Parental Leave to maximise flexibility within the scheme.
Recommendation: The Government’s review should examine barriers to flexibility in the SPL scheme, including the requirement for employees to give employers eight weeks’ notice of blocks of leave and changes to start and end dates for leave. This should be with …
Response attribution not verified
#13 — Review adequacy of legal protections against paternity discrimination and raise awareness of rights.
Recommendation: In implementing reforms that work towards a more gender equal parental leave system, the Government must consider the potential impacts on employment discrimination against fathers and other parents. The Government’s review must consider the adequacy of legal protections against paternity …
Response attribution not verified
#12 — Evaluate effectiveness of local initiatives and commission schemes supporting fathers' caring roles nationwide.
Recommendation: There have been recent local initiatives, for example in Blackpool, Bradford, Lambeth, Nottingham and Southend, in partnership with the National Children’s Bureau’s A Better Start campaign, designed to support fathers to play a more equal role in parenting. This has …
Response attribution not verified
#37 — Review adequacy of childcare support for self-employed mothers, including tax deductibility and flexibility.
Recommendation: The Government should undertake a review of the adequacy of existing childcare support for self-employed mothers. That review should consider: the potential merits of making childcare a tax-deductible expense, if only 58 for an initial period; expanding free hours of …
Response attribution not verified
#36 — Childcare availability and affordability are crucial for increasing female entrepreneurship rates.
Recommendation: The availability and affordability of childcare must be addressed to increase entrepreneurship rates among women. Making childcare more easily available and affordable would benefit the founding, performance and persistence of female-led businesses, while being vital for reconciling work and family …
Response attribution not verified
#32 —
Recommendation: We recommend that gender pay gap reporting be urgently reinstated, with reporting for the financial years 2019/20 and 2020/21 required in April 2021.
Response attribution not verified
#31 —
Recommendation: We were disappointed that the Government chose to suspend, rather than delay, gender pay gap reporting and enforcement for this year. Given the high number of women who have been furloughed or worked reduced hours due to caring responsibilities, and …
Response attribution not verified
#8 —
Recommendation: Publication of MPs’ staffing and business costs incurred in relation to parental leave and other costs associated with having dependent children make parent MPs look “more expensive” than those without children. This could be perceived negatively by the public and …
Response status not verified
#6 —
Recommendation: We welcome the recent extension of the extended leave fund to cover a greater range of MPs’ absences from Westminster, including for ill health and wider caring responsibilities. We also welcome the establishment of a new working group in IPSA …
Response status not verified
#1 —
Recommendation: The current law applicable to cohabitants on relationship breakdown can be costly, complicated and unfair. Complex property law and trusts principles often require the financially weaker partner—often women—to demonstrate direct financial contributions to the acquisition of the family home, while …
Response attribution not verified
Independent reviews(5)
Winsor Review Part 1 — Rec 48
Officers’ maternity entitlement should increase from 13 weeks at full pay to 18 weeks at full pay, with officers having the option, with the agreement of their chief officer, to spread the final five weeks of maternity pay over 10 weeks at reduced rate.
Policing & Security
Allen Early Intervention Review (Part 1) — Rec 11
I recommend that, building on the anticipated cross-government consultation paper for a system of flexible parental leave which enables parents to take more of their entitlement, the Government should form a broad-based cross-party group to explore over the long term what is the appropriate level of maternity and paternity support …
Other
Taylor Review — Rec 41
Government should review and, in any event, consolidate in one place guidance on the legislation which protects those who are pregnant or on maternity leave to bring clarity to both employers and employees. In parallel with the range of non-legislative options and the consolidation set out above, the Government should …
Employment & Work
Accepted
Taylor Review — Rec 26
The Review believes that the principles underlying the proposed NI reforms in the 2017 spring budget are correct. The level of NI contribution paid by employees and self-employed people should be moved closer to parity while the Government should also address those remaining areas of entitlement – parental leave in …
Employment & Work
Accepted
Selous Review — Rec 10
The Ministry of Defence to allow families to retain SFA to enable non-serving partners to manage their work commitments and protect their career; and/or children to complete the school year, whenever possible.
Other