Saturday, August 8, 2009

You know the spoiled little rich girl complaining that her Daddy won't buy her a Porsche and she has to make due with a BMW? If you're American, you'll probably think I sound like that spoiled little rich girl after reading this post. I'm sorry.



I'm Canadian.



I have access to almost a year of leave (combined maternity leave and parental leave) from work after having a baby with some pay.



And I don't think it is enough.



In fact, I think it provides a bare minimum amount of benefits and protection to a select group of people.



Although I think that the amount of time off, the dollar value of the benefits, the eligibility criteria, and the job protection of parents on leave still leaves a lot to be desired, those are not the subject of my post today. What I want to talk about today is the lack of flexibility in the current system, which is something that I think could be addressed without significant expense while making maternity, paternity and parental leave relevant and helpful to a lot more Canadian families.



What do I mean when I say that the current system is inflexible?



You have to take the leave starting at the end of your pregnancy or the latest when your child is born.



You have to take all of the leave within the first year following the birth of your child (you can't take some leave, go back to work for a bit, and then take some more leave later).



Money you earn while on leave is deducted from your benefits.



What is wrong with that? The problem is the lack of flexibility. It seems to assume that the parent with the lower income will stay home for a year with the baby while the higher earning partner continues to bring home the bacon and pay most of the bills. Maybe that is fine for a lot of people, but what happens if:



A mother is the higher wage earner and wants to be able to stay home with her baby to facilitate breastfeeding but can't afford to pay the bills with the combination of her husband's salary and the benefits that she is getting?



A family is just scraping by on two incomes and can't afford to have one of the two parents earning significantly less or shelling out a lot of money for day care?



One of the parents that wants to take leave is in the middle of a critical project or initiative at work during the first year of the baby's life and can't take time off then?



The baby turns out to be a very calm baby that just sleeps and nurses all day and the at-home parent is bored and would like to be able to go back to work early (perhaps working from home with the baby there or taking the baby to work) but defer the leave for when the baby is more active?



Too bad.



So what would I like to see instead?



Just like people need to accumulate a certain number of hours of work to qualify for benefits under the maternity, paternity and parental leave provisions, I think people should be guaranteed a certain number of hours of leave that they can take as they like. For example:



Instead of taking one year off, they could work half-time for two years and get the same total dollar value of benefits (at the moment if you work half-time while on leave what you earn would essentially cancel out your benefits, so you wouldn't be getting any benefits)



A mother with a calm baby could continue working until her baby is 6 months old and then take a year off from the time the baby is 6 months until the baby is 18 months.



In a family where the one partner is staying home and the other one is a teacher, could have the non-teacher partner go back to work for a few months while the teacher is at home during the summer and then continue the leave when the school year resumes.



The stay-at-home parent could gradually reintegrate into the workplace by going back one day per week, then two days per week, then three days per week and so on without the total dollar value of benefits or number of hours off being affected. This would make the transition easier for the baby and the parent.



Let families split the leave by having both parents take small amounts of time off. Instead of one parent being off full-time, let each parent take a bit of time off each week and share the job of raising their child.



Quebec has made some changes to its system (the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan) to be more generous and more flexible. For example, parents can choose between having a year off at the regular rate of benefits or taking a shorter leave at a higher payout. They also allow you to interrupt your benefits and then restart them later, however all of the benefits must be received within 52 weeks of the birth of the baby. This is a move in the right direction, but I'd like to see more options that increase the flexibility for parents without necessarily increasing the cost to the taxpayer.



Let's work towards a system that guarantees a certain number of paid hours off from work and that doesn't penalize parents for taking those hours in a way that best suits their professions, their family and their baby.



My hope for the United States is certainly that they create a system of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave for all Americans. But I hope that they can perhaps learn from some of the failings of our system and implement a more flexible approach from the start.



This post was written as a contribution to the Maternity Leave Carnival at Strocel.com.