is 'maternity leave' justified?

Get pregnant just for the £120.00 a week maternity allowance?? I don't think so! It's a far cry away from full pay and not very much to live on when you have previous worked full time on a decent wage.

Payment of this is based on how many weeks you have worked previous to becoming pregnant... I'm on maternity leave now, should I get pregnant again before I go back to work, I would not be entitled to maternity allowance again. I would have to have worked a certain amount of time before I can get it again. So no, you can't just keep getting pregnant and never work and expect maternity allowance.

It doesn't effect small businesses. They get refunded back 100% of the 'allowance' and they get compensation on top of this to allow for the training of staff for maternity cover. Large businesses are a different story. They only get 90% (or something in the 90s) of the allowance back.

At the moment we get 52 weeks off, 38/39 weeks of this is with a paid maternity allowance. Do we deserve this? Of course we do! We workers pay contributions to society. Lazy idiots who have never worked and pop out kids, that's another story!

I feel sorry for Women in other Countries such as the US, where I've heard they only get up to 3 months disability pay. A new mother and a new baby need much more time than this.

Women can claim maternity pay currently for 39 weeks provided they have been in continous employment with their current employer for 26 weeks ending with the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth. There should be no to little effect to any business, statutory maternity pay is paid by the employer but most companies can claim most of this back and in the case of small business all of it can be claimed back from the government. Im not to sure on the repeatedly getting pregnant but I suspect they would need to return to work for a period of time before becoming eligible again. Even if this is not the case I don't think most women are going to want to turn into full time baby factories and would be pretty rare. Providing the time served criteria is met and the woman is paying NI contributions she is legally entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay this is around £120 and is not the full wage although an employer can offer more if they wish, the word Statutory is key here so the previous answerers claim that some employers don't offer it is utter rubbish it is a legal minimum.

Typical that the two people who don't find maternity leave justifiable are MEN! (my apologies if you actually are female but only a man can talk crap like that!)

I am due to go on maternity leave in a couple of months and will only be taking the 39 week 90% of my basic wage (which is lower than the standard rate of SMP so I'll be lucky to receive £95 per week) option as I simply can not afford to take any time off unpaid. Is it justifiable....HELL YES! I have worked my little behind off for the last 2 1/2 years for the company, paid my taxes and NI and don't see why I should pay someone else to look after my child which would mean claiming even more tax credits in order to do so. My partner can't afford to take the standard paternity pay option so is keeping all of his holidays so he can receive full pay while being at home with his new son.

And just for the record...this will be my third child, I work, my partner works, we claim nothing and only receive child tax credits which a majority of working parents are entitled to. We pay our mortgage, pay our bills and our children want for nothing......maternity leave isn't something for nothing and those who say differently will be the same people who will start spouting that people shouldn't be entitled to paid holiday leave either!!

It isn't full pay and I doubt women will take advantage of it by repeatedly getting pregnant, not many women will just have a baby to keep receiving money, most women have children because they long for a child. Hardly any women are that shallow. I certainly wouldn't repeatedly get pregnant to swindle my employer, that is the mentality of women who seek to live off benefits...not career women.

How it will affect female employment, I do not know. It may make some small business owners weary about employing women, most sensible ones will not be bothered. There is no way to gauge whether a woman you are interviewing will go on maternity leave as it is against the law to ask questions such as 'Do you intend to have a baby?' as that suggests you are hiring on a sex basis.

I personally feel maternity leave is justified. Most women will receive 90% pay for 10 weeks and then it will taper to a much lower amount over the course of the remainder of the year they take for maternity leave. Many mothers work very hard and so they deserve the chance to go back to their career with confidence and not have to worry about money when they do start a career.

I would say women today are made of very stern stuff. My mother raised me and my sister by herself with two jobs, she is now a high earning solicitor putting in many hours each day. Mothers no longer have to work in Dickensian or even ww2 environments and why should they just because their predecessors have? I don't feel as though women will take advantage of this and you cannot draw parallels between chavs on council estates and career women, it is a poor and inaccurate analogy to make. They won't be on full pay and it is not greedy.

Experience has shown that ironically, countries who have the best medical and maternity programs for women and children actually tend to have the lowest birth rates. You would think that some women might take advantage of generous programs, but in fact the tendency is that few women do. One reason is that pregnancy is physically difficult and strenuous on a woman, and so regardless of how generous the programs might be, it still isn't worth the health risks for most women to want to have a baby every year for 15 years. Also regardless of how good welfare might be, the standard of living is still better for a woman to work and get paid regular pay, and have 2 kids than for a woman to live on welfare of any kind and have a lot of kids. By the way, women do not "get themselves" pregnant, there is usually a man around somewhere unless you're Mary from Bethlehem, and what he says and does also influences how many children a woman might have.

Assuming that a woman was mad enough to keep getting pregnant just to get maternity leave even though carry a baby for 9 months is not an easy task and then looking after those many children tat she would have if she did keep getting pregnant to get maternity leave benefits,it would have a negative impact on small businesses' but I am assuming that right now the impact is not a great as it would be...if women did get pregnant just for those benefits

Your allowed to take 52 weeks. Where I work there hasn't been 1 woman who has taken their full entitlement. Most people can't afford to live on maternity pay alone, and have to come back to work early.

I didn't take my full entitlement either.

Small businesses can claim back the maternity pay they dish out. Statutory maternity pay is not a lot of money. It was £112.00 a week when I was on maternity leave in 2007.

Even if a woman got pregnant after 11 months she would still have to return to work as she wouldnt be due for another 9 but apart from that say if she got pregnant after 3 months and the second baby was due just before her first mat leave ended then she couldnt claim mat leave again. She would have to return to work for a certain amount of time before she could claim mat leave again.

And yes it is justified, the first year of a babies life is very important and a mother has every right to spend that with her child.

Are you sure? That's basically saying that the woman can get paid maternity leave for the first YEAR after the baby is born, which is just ridiculous! Also, if this is true, I'm sure there are certain criteria that have to be met in order to qualify for this... some places don't even do paid maternity leave. And the places that do usually require you to have worked so many hours before you're eligible for it. And there would be some rule probably to prevent people from taking 2-3 years off work just to keep having babies!

it truly is probably going certainly one of the finest questions I even have encountered at here. an exceptionally genuine question. collectively as i'm a mom and that i did take maternity flow away (I worked for the governement) I dont think of it is going to be paid. you may declare unemployment in the process your maternity flow away and get some sort of pay. there's no longer something incorrect with that when you consider which you paid into it. I dont think of the organization could could pay so you might look after your baby and for somebody to take your place interior the advise time. i think of that's honest that they carry your place for you once you so decide for to return back from flow away. i desperate to no longer flow back to my pastime through fact i had to enhance my son for his first 365 days with out artwork. yet i replaced into financially waiting to do this. It replaced right into a private selection. to no longer point out maximum ladies can artwork up till their do date with out subject. collectively as there are those few ladies who've a intense hazard being pregnant and finally end up on mattress relax, those i want to advise in basic terms employing for unemployment to compensate your pay loss.