EMPLOYMENT
In 2012, parental leave was increased from 90 to 480 days, with each
parent entitled to two months of non-transferable benefits. The ‘daddy’ quota was therefore increased to two months. Today, the design provides for two non-transferable months for each parent and 12 transferable months (six that can be transferred for each parent). If one parent does not use the full two non-transferable months period, the remaining time will be lost. The Parental Leave Act (1995:584) regulates parental leave in
Sweden, and an employee has the right, as a parent, to leave from her or his employment in accordance with it. Each parent is entitled to take leave from work until their child is 18
months old. The 480 days of paid leave per family can be used during the 18 months, but also afterwards. If days that are reserved for each parent but can be transferred are then transferred from one parent to another, the parent giving up his or her days must sign a consent form. Both parents can take leave on the same days during the child’s first year. However, these ‘double days’ must be maximum of 30.
Leave … but also pay Parents of children born after 1 January 2014 may receive payment
for parental leave until the child reaches 12 years of age; 80 per cent of the leave (384 days) must be used before the child turns four. Most leave is used within the first two years of the child’s life, but
days are often also used to extend holidays or provide cover when school is closed. A ‘gender-equality bonus’ offers an economic incentive for families
to divide parental leave more equally between the mother and the father. Each parent receives 50 Swedish krona per day, free of tax, for every day they use their leave equally. In the UK, under SPL, employers will not be required to offer
enhanced paternity pay in cases where they offer enhanced maternity pay, though they may choose to do so if they wish. Inequality of pay is a key factor that has impeded the uptake of
paternity leave, and it is certain to limit the appeal of SPL to cash- strapped new parents. It also projects a cultural expectation that women will be the only ones taking extended periods away from the workplace, which may halt their career progression, stopping the flow of female talent.
SPL in Germany and France Under German law, a system of shared parental leave is embedded
in the Federal Law on parental allowance and leave. German legislation grants both employed and self-employed parents an entitlement to paid parental leave for up to 14 months after the child’s birth. Parental leave must be taken for a minimum of two months by
either parent, and one parent can take up to a maximum of 12 months. If both parents share childcare, parental leave will be extended for an additional two months. In France, parental leave is a right, and an employer cannot refuse
a request for it. In order to benefit from parental leave, the employee must have been employed for at least a year in the company by the date the baby is born or has been adopted. Parental leave begins at the end of maternity leave.
A significant cultural shift? In the UK, Statutory Maternity Pay stands at 90 per cent of the
mother’s salary in the first six weeks of leave. It is capped at £139.58 per week for the remaining 33 weeks. Any further maternity leave is unpaid, and so are paternity and
parental leave. Shared parental leave will enable fathers to benefit from SMP (at the capped amount) for the weeks that are shared. Bigger organisations often provide for enhanced maternity pay.
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There is no obligation in the legislation to match such provisions for fathers, but, if SPL is to work and fathers are to be willing to share, there will be a need for such organisations to match pay for leave granted to mothers and to fathers. Arguably, it could be discriminatory not to do so. In Sweden, the government has put in place measures (including
remuneration by the state at least three times as generous as those in the UK) to both shift the cultural expectations that it is mothers who take leave and ensure that parents can afford a long break from work. Germany and France (mirroring the Swedish ‘daddy month’
approach) have recently put in place financial incentives for fathers to take leave by allocating some leave to fathers only; the family as a whole loses out on the amount of their collective paid-leave entitlement if the father does not take his quota. Certainly, Sweden is very advanced in creating a culture where childcare
does not affect the career of the mother only. If the UK is to move in this direction sooner rather than later, big companies and the government will have to look at the pay aspect of shared parental leave – and, of course, at increasing the provision of affordable childcare to encourage parents to return to work a year or so after the birth of their child.
For an extended version of this article, see the Autumn 2015 issue of Re:locate’s Europe digital magazine, out October.
For more on dual-career couples, see p12. c Miller Rosenfalck LLP, July 2015
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