Jo-anne Schofield is a mother of two and Executive Director of Catalyst Australia a not for profit network supported by trade unions and progressive researchers and individuals.
Australia's mums deserve innovative thinking
by Jo-anne Schofield
Executive Director - Catalyst Australia.
The results of the CareforKids.com.au survey show almost all parents think that a paid maternity leave scheme is crucial, with a marked preference towards six months paid leave (at 50% salary) with Government and employers jointly footing the bill.
With only a few weeks to make the decision before the new budget is laid out for 2009-10, it's crunch time for the Federal Government on the issue which is under threat of being put on the backburner "due to the economic crisis"…
In order to help the Government in their decision making, Jo-anne Schofield, mother of two and Executive Director of Catalyst Australia (a not for profit network supported by trade unions and progressive researchers and individuals), has come up with some alternative thinking on how Australia might devise a way to afford paid maternity leave and thus avoid the embarrassment of remaining one of the very few developed nations without a mandated scheme.
Jo-anne Schofield: "It's a good thing for our communities if working parents are able to take time out to spend with children. This should be the guiding principle for the Federal Government as they wrestle with whether to include a universal parental leave entitlement in this year's budget.
The second principle is to accept that many parents want or need to participate meaningfully in work while raising a family. However many lack choice, and face barriers such as a lack of affordable good quality child care, limited employment opportunities, inflexible work and gender bias in the framing of entitlements.
Catalyst has argued for a new policy option for parents: the creation of 'leave accounts' that roll up long service and annual leave into a portable leave accounts that can banked and drawn down by parents for the first five years of a child's life.
The Catalyst submission to the Productivity Commission inquiry into parental leave advocated for this initiative and was well received, however it remains to be seen what form a universal scheme will take in the budget and indeed whether a scheme will be included at all.
Today's labour market provides a weak foundation upon which to build an enduring policy framework for parents.
Although there is a system of universal entitlements to leave for parents, these policies are poorly aligned with how most people work, because they only apply to workers that are in secure, permanent employment. However, women are more likely to be casuals, have poor job security and/or work in second-rate part time employment.
Consequently many women never build up enough time in a job or employer goodwill to access even the most basic right to unpaid leave. Similarly the vast bulk of women working in private sector employment don't have any paid maternity leave entitlement.
At the same time, full-time male workers are often working longer hours with little scope to participate in life outside the workplace. This has a lot to do with workplace culture, which doesn't acknowledge men's roles as fathers, and does little to encourage men in their public lives to increase their share of the parenting load.
Importantly, when men do take paternity or parental leave it is usually from a pool of paid entitlements.
Child care costs
Child care and family payments are also critical in influencing whether women return to work after child birth. Australia's complex family payment system, the high cost of child care and a lack of regulation of fees can create a disincentive for women especially when their wages do not compensate for these costs.
Increasing child care subsidies will not work because these increases are inevitably absorbed into higher fees.
Public surveys show that this policy malfunction is causing a widespread and depressing amount of dissatisfaction across families and causing high levels of stress.
As well as taking some of the stress out of the work-life juggle, paid parental leave has been promoted by labour market economists as a way to retain women's skills in the labour market and boost our shrinking labour supply rates as the population ages.
Australia has a very weak participation rate of women with children and we are unique across OECD nations in our low levels of full time employment among mothers.
The global economic crisis has reduced some of the short term urgency here, but during a period of downturn or recession, it is even more critical that paid parental leave policies help women stay in employment.
One solution: Leave Accounts
To address some of these issues, Catalyst argued for a system of 'leave accounts' of banked leave that could be established for all workers.
Leave accounts would roll up long service leave and accrued annual leave into an account that moves with workers from job to job over the course of their working life. Leave could be drawn down to provide paid breaks from work for parents, or for other purposes in the case of people who did not have children.
This is not a new employment right as it is the same as existing long service leave entitlements.
Similar schemes of portable long service leave schemes have operated successfully in the construction industry for years. They are also finding favour in other sectors, such as contract cleaning in some states. These schemes are not difficult to administer, and because people move from job to job the costs are minimal as they are spread across firms. Schemes can become self-funding over time which makes them an even more cost-effective option.
Crucially for women, any system that helps them take periods of leave will also help them to return to work which benefits employers and government and boosts local labour supply while retaining skills in the labour market.
A leave account scheme may have the added benefit of equalising caring responsibilities. Because men are more likely to work unbroken patterns of full time work, their leave accounts will prosper. This should allow more access to paid leave for men and hopefully increasing choice and equality in child-rearing within households. It would also help the household to maintain a higher male wage for a period following childbirth.
Such a scheme was put forward by Catalyst as one option open to our Federal Government. Ultimately the Productivity Commission did not embrace this approach in its draft report. It also rejected similar social insurance type models that were suggested by other organisations.
Instead, the Commission has opted for an 18 week payment to families at the rate of the federal minimum wage. A major strength of the draft report is its attention to low paid women whose needs are elevated in the proposed scheme.
Irrespective of what sort of system applies, a universal paid parental scheme must be a feature of this year's Budget.
We encourage all Australian parents in the next few weeks to contact their local member of parliament and make clear that this country has waited long enough for a universal parental leave scheme.
The rumours are strong that the global financial crisis will be the pretext for delaying the introduction of a scheme in the upcoming budget. The only thing that will stop that happening is pressure from the public over the next few weeks.
In the longer term however, we should continue to talk about a truly revolutionary scheme like leave accounts, so that public policy can give people greater choice and flexibility in how they live and work in the future".
Jo-anne Schofield
Executive Director
Catalyst Australia
If you would like to comment on this article please join us at CareforKids Social and share your views with us.
CareforKids.com.au®
Care For Kids Internet Services Pty Ltd
ABN 55 104 145 735
Level 2, 2 Bligh St Sydney NSW 2000
privacy policy contact us