This is not the paternity leave policy you were looking for

So, this is a bit off the scientific/psychological beaten path, but since we get a good amount of traffic from people in the UK it seemed worth mentioning...

Image via Hammonton Photography

You might be aware that the UK government recently did something awesome by giving employed fathers the right to take up to 26 weeks off work during the first year of their child's life. This was a massive step forward from the previous Ordinary Paternity Leave policy, which gave dads a whopping 2 weeks off work. In terms of government mandated pay, the scheme is pretty close to the maternity leave policy; dads receive the lesser of £128.73 a week, or 90% of average weekly pay. One difference, is that fathers can only begin their leave after the mother takes 20 weeks of her leave.

Many employers (universities among them) offer additional pay for maternity leave to employees within certain salary band (which is great- thanks!). But, (here's where things aren't so great), some employers don't feel that this extra pay should extend equally to paternity leave (warning - I don't have national data on this; my conclusion is based on the policies I've seen from a handful of institutions). For example, a maternity leave plan might offer extra pay to mothers until 26 or 31 weeks, while fathers who start their leave at 21 weeks would receive no extra pay (beyond the statutory rate mentioned above). This means that, in practice, maternity leave policies are more financially generous than paternity leave policies. Sharing leave between parents is often more financially detrimental to a family than having the mother take the entire leave.