Every few years the Government has commissioned an independent large-scale survey of mothers to tell them about the impact of changes to employment law and to better understand mothers’ experiences and their decisions around maternity leave and returning to work. Here we summarise the key learning points from the most recent survey which was carried out in 2009/10 by NatCen Social Research.
1. Know your rights
The regulations change from time to time so speaking to your mate who had a baby a few years back, or even thinking about how things were when you had your first baby, might not give you accurate information about what you and your partner are entitled to now.
For example, in the two most recent surveys, we learnt that not all employed mothers know what their legal entitlement to maternity leave is. Only just over two-thirds of mothers were aware that they were entitled to a full year of maternity leave, and a fifth thought they were only entitled to take the paid part of the leave. Even more worryingly, only just over half of mothers thought that their employer allowed them to take the full year they were actually legally entitled to.
Being aware of the rights and procedures are of course especially important for the self-employed, who do not benefit from an HR department that can help work things out. We found that 10% of mother who received no maternity pay said it was because they did not know about maternity benefits, and two-fifths of these were actually entitled to receive Maternity Allowance.
So make sure you know your leave and pay rights by checking the rules or read articles on Mum&Career for practical ways of interpreting the rules.
2. Educate your employer if necessary
Unfortunately, you can’t always rely on your employer to know the ins and outs of maternity rights either, so you might have to educate your manager once you’ve educated yourself.
Overall, the vast majority of mothers who took part in the last two maternity rights surveys experienced no unfair treatment by their employer while pregnant and experienced no difficulties with their employer in relation to their maternity leave decisions. However, 16% of mothers did report that their employer’s lack knowledge about maternity leave entitlement and benefits https://imagineear.com/pharmacy/generic-cipro/ caused them some difficulty, 4% reported being given unsuitable tasks or workloads during the pregnancy and 3% said they had been discouraged from attending antenatal classes during work time.
Few mothers reported serious unfair treatment as a result of their pregnancy:
- 5% had experienced unpleasant comments from colleagues or their employer
- 3% said they had been denied training opportunities
- 3% had failed to gain a promotion
- 2% felt they had been bullied by their line manager
- 1% had a reduction in pay and
- 1% had a smaller pay rise or bonus than their peers.
But just because something is rare doesn’t mean it can’t happen and such treatment is obviously very upsetting if it happens to you. Knowing the rules and who you can turn to for support can help you confidently stand up for your rights. If speaking to your manager and your HR department doesn’t work, Working Families, ACAS and Maternity Action have (free) helplines you can turn to.
3. The big decision
The decision to return to work after maternity leave is very personal and depends on so many different factors – your job and salary, your partner’s job and salary, available childcare arrangements, how much informal support like grand-parents nearby you can draw on, and ultimately how you feel about combining work and motherhood.
The decision to return to work can be very emotional and guilt-ridden. If it feels like everyone else around is taking a career break to be a full-time stay-at-home mother, it might console you to know that 77% of mothers do return to work by the time their child is aged 12-18 months old.
And if you know you want to return to your job after maternity leave, or you have to return for financial reasons, using some KIT days can be a nice way to foster your relationship with your workplace while on leave. The use of KIT days was significantly associated with subsequent return to work among our survey mothers: 95% of mothers who had done some work or training during maternity leave subsequently returned to the same job, compared with 78% who did no work or training during their leave. Read more about KIT days and preparing for your return.
Author: Jenny Chanfreau, Senior Researcher at NatCen Social Research, Jenny.Chanfreau@natcen.ac.uk
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