APPENDIX 19
Memorandum submitted by the National Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) (PL 35)
Surveys show that most full-time working mothers
are dissatisfied with the amount of time they spend with their
children; of a sample of full-time working mothers in professional/managerial
jobs two-thirds felt they did not see enough of their children.[94]
40 per cent of women define a good parent as "always being
there" and 35 per cent as one who "spends time with
children".[95]
A report by Social Community Planning Research[96]
showed that 64 per cent of an exclusively female sample thought
that women should be at home with children until they reach school
age.
Over the last two decades there has been a sharp
decline in the amount of time parents spend caring for their children.
Time spent with children has declined by as much as 40 per cent
within a generation.[97]
The pressures of trying to balance the conflicting demands of
home and work can lead to stress, communication failures, and
relationship breakdown.[98]
Work puts strains on couple relationships where there is no time
for nurturing them and the most apparent function of these relationships
becomes that of "coping" with the everyday logistics
of an overworked household.[99]
While a number of employers have adopted policies which support
parents it is not always clear whether children have benefited.
In a survey undertaken in 1997 by the NSPCC
of 998 children aged 8 to 15,[100]
children stated clearly that a good parent is someone who spends
time with them, and this is one of the ways that they show they
care (63 per cent). Similarly when considering children's views
on qualities important in a good mother and father, taking time
to talk to children and spend time with them scored 76 per cent
for mothers and 78 per cent for fathers.
The lessons from around the world show that
the best ways of achieving a healthy balance between the work
mothers and fathers do and the care of their children is through
child friendly employment practices which seek to achieve equal
parenthood. All the evidence suggests that child friendly policies
which allow more time and energy to be devoted to parenting will
benefit children and their parents—by creating more stable
families, by reducing family breakdown, by ensuring children are
better supported in education and by helping to divert young people
from crime.
There are also other important benefits for
business—evidence from family friendly employers shows parental
leave reduces staff turnover, increases employees' loyalty and
through reducing stress, cuts down absenteeism and improves productivity.
And it can benefit government by helping to avoid costs arising
from delinquency, crime, education failure and ill-health.
To maximise the benefits for children, there
are three lessons demonstrated by the most successful parental
leave schemes:
— parental leave should be part of
a package of other child friendly policies such as high quality
affordable childcare, support for parents and public education
about their rights.
— there must be flexibility for both
parents to allow them to match work and family commitments to
their needs. It should be possible to take leave either full-time,
part-time or a day at a time. And this leave should allow working
parents to reduce their working hours with a corresponding cut
in pay if they wish. But there should also be a family leave entitlement
with a non-transferable portion of leave for each parent—to
encourage the father's involvement in childrearing.
— there must be a high level of earnings
replacement together with job protection if the leave is to benefit
low paid workers as well as higher paid workers, and to involve
men as well as women.
In the NSPCC's view the major flaw in the government's
very welcome plans to implement the parental leave directive is
their failure to provide paid parental leave. Rights for parents
are worthless if you can't afford to claim them. The government's
current plans will discriminate against the poor. They will only
allow the well off to take advantage of unpaid parental leave.
If parental leave is unpaid in the UK, the evidence
suggests take-up will be very low. Earlier this year a TUC poll
showed that 85 per cent of parents didn't intend to make full
use of the new right. Even the government's own estimates suggest
that only 2 per cent, 1 in 50, of eligible fathers and one in
three eligible mothers will take parental leave over a five-year
period.
Current proposals contained in the DTI consultation
on parental leave propose quite limited flexibility for the taking
of unpaid parental leave. In the NSPCC's view, this lack of flexibility
will make it hard for parents to use the new law to help them
juggle the pressures of work and family and mean take-up even
lower than the expected 2 per cent for fathers and 35 per cent
for mothers.
In the current draft proposals parental leave—giving
both parents three months unpaid leave to care for each child
under five—is only to be available in blocks of a week or
more, is only available to parents who have babies after 15.12.99,
and parents must give a minimum of four weeks notice that they
need it, or double the amount of leave needed.
If parental leave is to be unpaid the NSPCC
proposes that at least it should be flexible, and would recommend
the following:
— Parental leave should be available
to all those with children under eight.
— It should be able to be taken in
blocks of a day (not a week as proposed).
— 21 days notice, as in maternity leave
arrangements, should be adequate in every case, especially if
the employer has the right to postpone parental leave.
NSPCC
1 September 1999
94 Parents at Work (1995). Time Work and the Family:
Tackling the Long Hours Culture. Parents at Work, London. Back
95
New Ways to Work (1996). Women: setting new priorities. Whirlpool
Foundation Study, Part Two. Back
96
Social Community Planning Research (1990) quoted in Penelope
Leach (1994) Children First, p72. Penguin, London Back
97
Mattox, WR Jr (1990). The Family Time Famine. Family Policy,
Vol 3, 1. The Family Research Council. Back
98
Walker, J. (1995). The Cost of Communication Breakdown. BT
Forum. Back
99
Research on Couples' Adaptation to change. One Plus One, addressing
the Parents at work 1995 Annual Conference, London. Back
100
Ghate, D, and Daniels, A. (1997), Talking About My Generation.
NSPCC, London. Back
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