What does it mean to be a new co-parent in the workforce?
Well, obviously it means that you have a new baby/child to look after, feed and care for. Probably the best time of your life?
That may not be the case for most dads or co-parents though. If you’re a working dad or second parent, then you may take up to two-weeks off work at the current Paternity Pay rate of £187.18 per week, or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower).
If you want to take any more time off, then you need to use up your holiday entitlement, or you may opt to take unpaid time off. Certainly, quite awkward to do that as your wife, partner or the primary adopter will already be off work being paid Statutory Maternity or Adoption Pay (also £187.18 per week or 90% of average weekly earnings [whichever is lower]). So, unless you have pre-budgeted and saved up enough money to keep you going whilst your baby/child is settling into your home, you have to return to work after just two weeks.
This pay rate is less than 50% of the National Minimum Wage per week. Even worse, if you only work part time and earn less than £123 a week or are self-employed, then you don’t get any pay at all!
Surely this is the same in other European countries?
Since its introduction in 2003, there have been no significant changes to Statutory Paternity Pay and Leave in the UK.
As a contrast, currently new dads in Spain may take 16 weeks off work at full pay. And new rules introduced in 2021 in France mean that working dads can now spend 28 days at home with their new baby and still be paid their normal rate of pay.
Families in Sweden can take 480 days of paid parental leave, with 90 days being specifically reserved for fathers.
But what about Shared Parental Leave and Pay?
This was introduced in 2014, so you would think that this is quite a popular way to have time with your new baby. It allows parents to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay (at the current rate stated above) after the birth or adoption of a child.
You may therefore be surprised to know that it is used in less than 2% of all births, and according to a government review in 2023, almost half of all dads (45%) were not even aware that shared parental leave was an option. This may possibly be due to the fact that the rules around taking shared parental leave are extremely complex and may be confusing to someone who doesn’t deal with HR matters.
To put the above in context, information provided by HMRC shows that £3.3bn was spent on statutory maternity pay in 2023/24. In the same period, £69m was spent on paternity pay and just £34.4m was spent on shared parental pay.
It was also noted that some dads need to return to work before their two-week paternity leave ends, either because of work commitments, or because they just can’t afford to take off two weeks at the statutory paternity rate.
Government review
Apparently, there is a government review due to take place this month (July) to look at parental leave entitlements. A spokesperson stated that they will be looking to eliminate the fact that dads need to be employed for 26 weeks before they are entitled to paternity leave.
No doubt we will have to wait and see whether the government commitment to ‘making sure parents receive the best possible support to balance their work and home lives’ turns into a reality.
I’m sure that all dads out there will be very keen to see the outcome.
