Excerpts
New research suggests that Shared Parental Leave (SPL) has failed to encourage greater take-up or longer leave by fathers, prompting calls for policy reform. Introduced in April 2015, SPL was designed to let parents share the load of looking after their children, giving fathers a greater role at home and encouraging mothers to get back to work sooner. But new research by economists from the Economics Department and Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath and Cardiff University shows that the policy has fallen flat. Workplace Insight has been tracking the bumpy passage of the legislation over the past nine years.
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Following this research the IPR have issued a policy brief with three key recommendations which could increase uptake of Shared Parental Leave. They are:
- Improve the financial terms: UK maternity leave is already among the worst paid in the OECD, and SPL’s pay is even lower. If families are going to use SPL, the financial incentives need to be better.
- Simplify the system and provide legal support: The current system is too complicated and hard to navigate. Pairing SPL with legal support for both parents and employers could help.
- Loosen eligibility criteria: The strict rules around how long parents have to work for the same employer and how much they earn are making it hard for some to qualify. Easing these restrictions could encourage more dads to take leave