A Time to Value - Media Pack
A Time to Value - Proposal for a National Paid Maternity Leave Scheme
Media Pack
Social benefits of
paid maternity leave
Encouraging and
providing assistance for parents to raise their children benefits all
of us. Paid maternity leave is a mechanism which provides assistance
to families so that they may better combine work and family responsibilities,
to the benefit of the children, the workplace and the community. It
may also have flow-on benefits for the fertility rate, community life
and social cohesion.
Supporting families and
motherhood
Many submissions
supported the introduction of a government funded paid maternity leave
scheme because of its social benefits. Many observed that children are
our future, the next generation of workers and taxpayers and that measures
such as paid maternity leave directly contribute to child development.
Women's groups
and individuals strongly emphasised the importance of women continuing
to reproduce society and argued that this role is currently undervalued.
Paid maternity leave was described by other women's groups as a government
payment which recognised the dual responsibilities of infant care and
employment attachment.
Changing workplace cultures
Submissions from
employers, academics and women's groups argued that a government funded
paid maternity leave scheme may influence workplace cultures to strengthen
acceptance by employers that employees should be supported in balancing
work and family. It may also mean that more women access existing family
supports and maternity leave entitlements.
Fertility
Australia's fertility
rate has declined to 1.7 children per woman, well below the replacement
rate. The age at which women have children has risen at the same time.
As the South Australia Liberal Women's Council noted, "聟 children
are increasingly seen as a non-option by young Australian women". [1] The interim paper argued that the declining birth
rate is in part a result of the financial, professional and social disadvantage
encountered by families. [2] This was a view strongly
reflected in the submissions. Although nobody concluded that paid maternity
leave alone would raise the Australian fertility rate, there was widespread
consensus that paid leave, in conjunction with other family-friendly
measures, not only helped counteract the economic disadvantage accruing
from child bearing but made the combining of work and family more bearable
and therefore more likely to be attempted. In the absence of work and
family policies, some women's groups as well as academics noted that
increasing numbers of young women will choose not to have children,
or have fewer children. There was anecdotal evidence however, particularly
from women who were their family's primary income earner, that access
to a period of paid leave after the birth was important in their decision
to have a child.
1.
South Australia Liberal Women's Council, Submission 100, p2.
2. See Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Valuing Parenthood: Options for paid maternity leave, interim paper
2002 HREOC Sydney 2002, p61.