Joanna Clifton-Sprigg is an economist and a lecturer at the University of Bath. In her research she explores topics related to labour markets and social cohesion. Over the years she has developed expertise in migration, education and gender inequalities, and she often works at an intersection of these areas. She approaches her research questions through application of advanced econometric methods to various numerical data. One strand of her work focuses on gender differences in work-related outcomes and work-life balance, particularly emerging around the birth of the first child. This work has seen her set up and chair a network of academics working on gender gaps and leave policies (GW4 Maternity leave in the UK). In addition to this she has spent last year as an Understanding Society Fellow, researching the impact of the 2015 UK Shared Parental Leave policy rollout. She often presents her work in international conferences and has published in an array of prestigious academic journals in economics.
She is a keen advocate for equity and equality. For this reason she serves as a member of the EDI Committee and is also the Widening Participation lead in the Department, working with secondary schools to promote access to economics for students from underrepresented groups. Her personal website can be found here.
Persistent gender gaps in pay and career progression are a feature of European labour markets, including the UK. The pay gap between men and women widens after parenthood and half of this increase is due to mothers spending less time in full-time work.Narrowing of the gender gaps in the labour market has been an objective for both the government and many employers. This is because of equity and equality arguments and because narrowing of the gap would lead to better allocation of talent, contributing to productivity and output in the economy.
Parental leave policies as an important equaliser
Parental leave policies which complement maternity leave, such as paternity leave, ‘daddy months’ in some European countries, or shared parental leave, can help:
- mothers to return to work earlier
- parents to share caring responsibilities more
- to improve work-life balance
- to reduce gender gaps.
The best solution is still being debated, but the majority of European countries have parental leave policies. For instance, under the EU Work-Life Balance Directive, all EU Member States must have two non-transferrable months of parental leave for each parent, with the level of compensation determined by individual states.
The non-transferrable leave, often called ‘daddy months’, has been seen as successful in enabling care-sharing among parents. Fathers do take advantage of the well-paid earmarked leave, with uptake varying by the terms of the policy and context: the Quebec Parental Leave Insurance Plan increased fathers’ participation by 250% and the introduction of paternity leave in Spain led to an increase in leave days by fathers of about eight days.
UK Shared Parental Leave as an enabler of greater sharing
The UK is unique in this context. Although working parents have maternity, paternity and Shared Parental Leave (SPL) policies at their disposal, SPL applies only to a subgroup of working parents, is relatively poorly compensated and requires a trade-off with maternity leave.
The policy gives eligible, working mothers the opportunity to transfer 50 weeks of their leave and 37 weeks of leave pay to fathers, so that the leave is used jointly. Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) is offered at a flat rate or 90% of pay, whichever is lower. In 2015 the flat rate was £139.58 per week and in 2024 £184.03 per week, only a fraction of the National Living Wage.
To be eligible for ShPP parents must meet specific work and pay criteria. If parents want to use the scheme, they must:
- be employees (not ‘workers’, who tend to be on more casual contracts)
- have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (i.e. around 41 weeks before the child is born)
- stay with the same employer until the start of the leave
- each earn on average at least £123 a week.
Data on uptake and length of leave are not systematically collected and reported. However, it is estimated that uptake of SPL was under 2% in 2018-19.
Shared Parental Leave has failed as a policy
Our research, which compares leave uptake between parents just before and after the
policy introduction, using large-scale nationally representative data, finds that the policy has not, on average, led to a greater take-up or longer leave by fathers. This is true of fathers in general, as well as for various subgroups who may be particularly affected.
Our case study for Understanding Society also found that “There is no evidence that a higher percentage of fathers took leave, or that the length of leave taken increased”.
Evidence
We evaluated effectiveness of Shared Parental Leave policy as captured by take-up and length of leave. In our view a successful policy in this case should have either incentivised fathers to share leave more equally with their partners or to complement paternity leave with shared parental leave, if they were already taking leave. The latter would mean that even if there is no increase in the number of fathers taking leave, the length of leave taken by fathers should increase.
To explore this, we used the UK Household Longitudinal Study data which follows 40,000 households each year and permits linking information of children with that of their parents, giving researchers a more complete picture of the family’s life, including work arrangements. We applied a quasi-experimental method called regression discontinuity in time, which allows us to identify a causal link between the policy and fathers’ behaviour.
We compared the take-up and length of leave of working fathers with children born before April 2015 (not eligible to use the policy) and in or after April 2015 (eligible to use the policy). To make the groups comparable and to mimic eligibility for SPL, we focused on fathers who had been continuously employed for at least a year before their child’s arrival and who were in a relationship with a working partner. By using comparable groups of parents whose children were born at different times, we ensured that any changes in the uptake of leave or its length are due to the policy itself and not any other confounding factors.
We found no effect. There is no evidence that a higher percentage of fathers took leave, or that the length of leave taken by fathers increased in response to the policy. We also examined the behaviour of subgroups of parents likely to benefit more from SPL and did not find effects for any of these subgroups.
Recommendations
Other work exploring the response to SPL, based on interviews with parents and descriptive analysis of data, points towards at least three hurdles to uptake:
Many working couples are not eligible for SPL and ShPP because of the qualifying employment period. This criterion is more restrictive than for other types of leave, and automatically excludes those on temporary or short-term contracts. It also discourages job changes.
The low level of payment during leave hinders sharing leave if the father is the high primary earner, as the leave-taking parent always foregoes a significant proportion of earnings, and the loss increases with earnings.
The system is also complex to navigate, and the lack of readily available information discourages uptake. As a result, it takes a lot of effort from prospective parents and employers to use the policy.
Research from other countries suggests that schemes with a quote of leave reserved for the father and ones which are accompanied by a high replacement rate for earnings are most successful in encouraging fathers to take leave.
We recommend three changes to SPL:
- Improving the financial terms of this policy
- Pairing the policy with adequate legal support
- Easing the eligibility criteria with regard to the length of time working for the same employer and the amount of pay.
Conclusion
This policy, although conceptually desirable, in practice has not changed decisions of an average household with regards to who is the primary caregiver of the child in their first year of life. This is an important finding, particularly in a society that seeks to reduce gender inequalities at work and in which parents are increasingly wanting to be both active in their child’s life right from the start.
This blog post is part of Joanna’s work with Professor Eleonora Fichera, Professor Melanie Jones and Dr Ezgi Kaya on the IPR policy brief 'Shared Parental Leave: Did it work?'. It forms part of a larger body of work including a IZA working paper and an Understanding Society Case Study.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.
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