Maternity leave

[pSinatra]

Sorry I thought you were a small business and not self-employed.

 

Fortunately my experience of being self employed had been IT contracting, so I could take holidays and just didn't bill for that day.

 

I assume that your paternity leave would be paid by the government based on the salary you pay yourself, or are you set-up as a sole trader?

 

Sorry, I was trying to view things as a small business but ended up talking about the difficulties of being self-employed.  Although, I don't think they are so different.....each being quite rigid & unable to be very flexible.

 

I'm a self-employed gardener & as such, it's seasonal.  I earn the majority of my money March-October & then tick over through the winter.  There have been times when I could really do with some help, but tend not to.  Not because I'm a money grabber, but because taking someone on is so fvcking complicated.  My Dad was a shop steward & I was brought up on unions & the protection of workers.  There comes a point where there is no point protecting the interests of the employee if the company folds because of it.  If it's not difficult enough to take someone as it is.......it's just got a little more difficult.

 

I don't know what constitutes a 'small' business?  If there are a dozen employees & they each have their own role......then losing one of them is going to have a serious impact on the business.  It's great that parents get to spend more time with their baby, but will they have a job to go back to?  What if someone is on long-term sick, there's another father on paternity leave?  Women have been discriminated against for decades & it appears men may now suffer the same discrimination.  I'm not saying it's fair, but it has got to be a consideration by an employer & more so in a small business.

 

I have noticed that you work in IT on a contractual basis.  So you don't get the same protection & stability as you you would being permanently employed by a business.  That may suit you, but would it suit everyone?  If you were to start a family, you might want something a bit more stable.  Trouble is, you may not be so employable.......if you're going to want months off here & there over the next few years.  With respect, wouldn't they simply use another contractor?

[Alf Bentley]

This seems like a decent initiative - and revenue-neutral, as I understand it: just allowing the parental leave to be shared flexibly between the mother and father, as they choose according to their circumstances, unless I'm missing something.

 

Doesn't address the much bigger issue of the "affordability of children" throughout childhood, though. 

 

For most people, real wages are falling, housing costs are exorbitant and rising, as are childcare costs, plus the rest (food, fuel etc).

 

Am I imagining it or turning into a reactionary, or is the breeding of future generations now concentrated on the rich, the poor and relatively recent generations of immigrants (where native culture is still a strong factor)? Certainly, a majority of my old friends (mainly middle-aged, in relationships and in medium-income jobs) have opted not to have children, and close to 50% of the parents of children in my daughter's year (late primary) have split up, at least partly due to financial stresses, I presume...

 

Ultimately, I suppose it's the job of the government - and the people who vote it in - to ensure that policies are introduced (across the board - real incomes, childcare, housing costs etc.) that ensure that most working people can afford a family if they want one.

 

I can appreciate the difficulties of running a small business without such support, if key workers take parental leave etc. We need to address that as a society, through the ballot box....but the same people who don't want to impose unrealistic burdens on small business tend to be the ones who want low tax, low benefits, low public spending, low immigration etc. Doesn't add up, lads and lasses!!

[Oasisedup]

Doesn't address the much bigger issue of the "affordability of children" throughout childhood, though. 

 

For most people, real wages are falling, housing costs are exorbitant and rising, as are childcare costs, plus the rest (food, fuel etc).

 

Am I imagining it or turning into a reactionary, or is the breeding of future generations now concentrated on the rich, the poor and relatively recent generations of immigrants (where native culture is still a strong factor)? Certainly, a majority of my old friends (mainly middle-aged, in relationships and in medium-income jobs) have opted not to have children, and close to 50% of the parents of children in my daughter's year (late primary) have split up, at least partly due to financial stresses, I presume...

 

Ultimately, I suppose it's the job of the government - and the people who vote it in - to ensure that policies are introduced (across the board - real incomes, childcare, housing costs etc.) that ensure that most working people can afford a family if they want one.

 

I can appreciate the difficulties of running a small business without such support, if key workers take parental leave etc. We need to address that as a society, through the ballot box....but the same people who don't want to impose unrealistic burdens on small business tend to be the ones who want low tax, low benefits, low public spending, low immigration etc. Doesn't add up, lads and lasses!!

 

You're imagining it.

 

There have been plenty of studies done both within different countries and internationally, and across long and short-term timespans, which show that the richer people get, the fewer kids they have.  (Example: http://www.economist.com/node/14743589?story_id=147435 , example: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12796 )

 

Also, even if poorer people were making sensible economic choices and having fewer children than the wealthy (when the opposite is true), it's not the "job of the government" to intervene. Sometimes it's the job of the individual to make smart choices, not that of the state to tell people how to live.

[Alf Bentley]

You're imagining it.

 

There have been plenty of studies done both within different countries and internationally, and across long and short-term timespans, which show that the richer people get, the fewer kids they have.  (Example: http://www.economist.com/node/14743589?story_id=147435 , example: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12796 )

 

Also, even if poorer people were making sensible economic choices and having fewer children than the wealthy (when the opposite is true), it's not the "job of the government" to intervene. Sometimes it's the job of the individual to make smart choices, not that of the state to tell people how to live.

 

I obviously didn't make clear that I was talking about the affordability of children in the UK now, compared to a few years back - not compared to under-developed countries, 19th century Britain or whatever. What you say is true for such historical or international comparisons.

 

However, you seem to have misread what I wrote. I didn't compare poorer people to the wealthy. I compared "most people" (by which I mean working people on low to middle incomes in the UK) to the rich AND the poor AND recent generations of immigrants. To do a proper comparison, you'd need stats on birth rate by income, of course.

 

How - and how much - the government intervenes is a political decision. Yes, it's then down to individuals to make "smart choices". If real incomes are falling, the cost of housing, food and childcare is rising, and large numbers of couples with children are succumbing to stress and splitting up, the "smart choice" might be for working people on low to middle incomes to decide that children are unaffordable....that has massive consequences. Must work!