What we can learn from Germany’s mat leave laws
IN Germany maternity leave is called ‘parents’ time’. And it’s this equal treatment of mums and dads that Australia can learn from, writes Tiahn Wetzler.
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GIVEN maternity leave laws didn’t really exist until the 1970s, Australia has come a long way in protecting mothers during pregnancy and parents after their baby arrives.
With current laws allowing eligible parents 18 weeks of Parental Leave Pay following the birth/adoption of their baby, the amount payable is $695 a week before tax. Eligible parents must be the primary carer of the child (ie. only one parent is eligible) and must have worked 10 of the 13 months before the birth and have received a taxable income of less than $150,000 in the financial year before the date of claim.
As mothers are usually the primary carer, the “Dad and Partner Pay” allows an additional two weeks of $695 under the same conditions. Employees are then entitled to take up to 12 months unpaid leave if they are the primary carer, and different arrangements may be made with different employers regarding paid leave during this period.
One side of the spectrum on this issue argues that women/parents deserve a better deal and a longer paid maternity leave period, while the other claims that it’s unaffordable for businesses. While no two countries are the same, we can always take notes from one another, and Germany is a prime example of a country that has made strides towards a significantly more progressive paid parental scheme than our own.
Having passed reforms to their paid parental leave benefit system in 2007, Germany opted for moving away from a means-tested system and toward the Nordic model, whereby wage-dependent benefits are granted for a minimum of 12 months. For starters, mothers and fathers are granted the same rights and both can be confident that their jobs will be secured and protected by the law until their child turns three. Additionally, mothers are given six weeks of compulsory full paid leave before the birth and for eight weeks following. Parental leave is then approximately 67 per cent of your regular monthly income, but is boosted if you earn less than €1000 and is paid for twelve months. If the mother and father choose to share in this allowance, they receive a maximum of 14 months, with each parent able to take a minimum of two and a maximum of 12 months each.
If you are a single parent, you get the full 14 months to yourself.
Also, if you weren’t employed before the birth, you’ll still get the parental allowance. Those receiving the benefit are allowed to work for 15-30 hours per week without the payment being impacted, and are entitled to these hours until the child is three, if the company they work for has more than 15 employees. There are also bonus payments given on a monthly basis, but these differ from state to state and don’t exceed €300. However if both parents opt for part time work simultaneously, they will receive “parent money plus” payments for four months.
As this is funded by the government, it comes at no great cost to employers and has therefore not been met with almost no opposition.
There were two primary motivations from policy makers when bringing these reforms in. One was to move towards a more gender-equal system by granting mothers and fathers the same rights (outside of the 8 weeks leave mothers must take prior to the birth). The second motivation was to increase the number of births overall in the country, as rates had been falling. Since the introduction of this system, birthrates per woman have increased from 1.37 in 2007 to 1.5 in 2015 — the highest in 33 years.
In addition to the increase in birthrates, the German Socio Economic Panel Study found that the reforms have had a positive impact on return to work habits from young mothers overall as well as the speed with which they return. The progressive approach has proven to be a winner on two fronts — increasing maternal employment and thus boosting the economy, and turning the birthrate chart around.
Employer hiring habits have not been impacted and the number of women in the workforce has actually increased, seeing Germany with a 71.5 per cent employment rate for women between 20 and 64, much higher than the European average of 62.3 per cent. Only the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway report better numbers — and these are the very countries Germany looked to when drafting their parental leave policy.
And what impact does it have on fathers?
While a Forsa poll of 1000 fathers found that only 38 per cent chose to take parental leave in 2016, 81 per cent said that a good father should spend as much time as possible with his children. In Sweden an estimated 90 per cent of fathers take at least some parental leave. While the laws in Germany afford fathers the same rights as mothers, it takes time for cultural change to catch up and for new norms to be formed.
If we compare the 38 per cent in 2016 with the 3.5 per cent of 2007, then it’s clear that the positive impacts are already in action and that the Swedish/Nordic model is setting an excellent example. Furthermore, In 2015 a total of 1.64 million mothers and fathers received parental pay in Germany, which was a 5 per cent increase from 2015. The overall number of mothers receiving the pay increased by 3 per cent while the total number of fathers increased by 12 per cent.
In a study by the Directorate for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs, Germany was listed as one of only 7 countries where more than 50 per cent of the population thought it was right for mothers and fathers to use the same amount of parental leave.
I think the fact that it’s called Elternzeit (parents time) as opposed to maternity or paternity leave encapsulates the whole message of this system. They don’t want it to be about gender, they simply want parents to have the time and security necessary to have and care for their children and Australia should take similar steps.
Originally published as What we can learn from Germany’s mat leave laws