| Author (Person) | King, Tim |
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| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.10, No.28, 29.7.04 |
| Publication Date | 29/07/2004 |
| Content Type | News |
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By Tim King Date: 29/07/04 THE economic effects of maternity leave were questioned in colourful language recently by the UK Independence Party MEP Godfrey Bloom. "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age," he said. Women, he suggested, should "always have dinner on the table when you come home". The European Association of Craft, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (UEAPME) rejects Bloom's comments. UEAPME's Secretary-General Hans-Werner Müller said the MEP's remarks "gave a bad image of SME owners and the SME community in general". UEAPME did not question the economic effect of maternity leave because it accepted that the leave was a part of EU law. UEAPME supported "the combination of parental and professional responsibility", Müller said. Nor is Bloom's world view shared by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has made a series of studies of social policy in different countries, under the working title, Babies and Bosses. The OECD argues that family-friendly policies are good for the European economy, when faced with the prospect of a diminishing workforce having to support an ageing population. More women in the workforce increases the labour supply, keeps a check on the level of wages and increases wealth. Mark Pearson, head of the OECD's social policy division, says that: "The consensus view of maternity leave is that a little bit of paid leave is a good thing because it encourages people into the workforce." But from the OECD's research he concludes that: "Too much paid maternity leave means mothers spend too much time outside the labour market and lose skills." Women who spend too much time on paid maternity leave risk falling from their career tracks and ending up trapped in second-class jobs. So where does the OECD believe the balance lies? In length of time, "roughly six months". The OECD is less certain as to what the level of payment should be. Anything below 50% of the previous wage is probably too low. As to who should pay, the OECD concludes that there is a good case for it being paid by the state rather than the employer. If the employer has to bear the costs, then the chance of discrimination against women, particularly from private-sector small employers, increases and is very difficult to stop. A survey of entitlements across the EU finds that commonly there is a state contribution or compulsory insurance, sometimes topped up by the employer. Low birth rates have long-term economic disadvantages. In Pearson's view, the goal to be strived for is a combination of high female employment and high fertility rates, hitherto achieved in the US and parts of northern Europe. Northern Europe's approach was to offer relatively generous provision of all kinds to do with the family. The US has had a wider earnings distribution so that working families could afford to buy in domestic services, whether child care or home help. In Austria and Germany, overly generous entitlements lead to women dropping out of the workforce. In the UK and Ireland, payment was too low and the period of paid leave too short so that the incentive to join the labour force was too small. The UK has increased the period of entitlement but there is still "a good case" for increasing payment and relating it to previous earnings. Pearson counsels that, despite the attention paid to maternity leave, entitlement probably ranks low down on the list of influential family-friendly policies. "In practical terms, we are talking about a few months at the beginning of a child's life. The child will have to be looked after at least until it is 12. "In our view it is far more important to have a decent child-care system in place from about the age of three onwards so people can start thinking seriously about getting back into the labour force. "The certainty about whether you can work from nine-to-five is far more important than focusing on maternity leave." |
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Subject Categories | Employment and Social Affairs, Geography |
