How is the government addressing unequal parental leave?

Introducing 26 weeks paid parental leave for all parents will help undo the structural inequalities in gender pay, King’s College London’s Dr David Marsh wrote in an International Women’s Day blog post this year. 

There are countless examples of shared parental leave or equal leave policies helping to reduce the gender pay gap. In the UK, you can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you, although of course this doesn’t account for pre-existing pay and social inequalities that might be in place that may influence the decision to share equally. 

With an election around the corner and manifestos out this week, we had a look at what some of the major UK political parties had to say on the issue of parental leave. 

You may think it’s unusual to start with the Lib Dems, but they’ve come out swinging on this issue. They plan to ‘transform’ parental leave by doubling Statutory Maternity Pay to £350 a month, increasing paternity pay to 90% of earnings and introducing a use-it-or-lose-it ‘dad month’ of paid leave for new fathers.

On the other hand Labour, although promising to ensure parental leave is a right from day one of employment (which the Lib Dems are saying too), has pushed policy in this area down the road, saying it will conduct a review of parental leave within its first year of government. 

The Tories haven’t mentioned parental leave at all in their manifesto, which came out Tuesday this week.

Action of the week: If you work for an organisation, let us know if they have a shared parental leave policy, we’re interested in seeing what’s out there!