Year's maternity leave meant for duration of service

PETALING JAYA: The budget announcement of an additional one year maternity leave for civil servants echoes a global policy trend of placing importance in balancing family and career.While the new maternity leave applied to those in the public sector, many countries including Croatia, Denmark, Canada, Sweden and the UK, have adopted such long leaves in both the public and private sectors.

Each nation had their own system and pay structure which was closely monitored by the employers and the government.

In Canada, 52 weeks of leave is given to both parents, with 35 weeks from the figure divided between both parents. During that duration, they are not paid by their employers but instead receive financial assistance from the Canadian Employment Insurance that provides 50 weeks of parental benefits for those on parental leave. This includes 55 pc of their earnings or a maximum of C$457 (RM1,328.77) a week.

As for the UK, women receive the benefits of Statutory Maternity Leave and Statutory Maternity Pay, which allows them 52 weeks off. The new mothers will receive 90pc of their pay from their employers for the first six weeks. It later drops to a flat rate of S138.18 (RM723.35) for the 33 weeks.

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Sweden has been practising parental leaves as opposed to maternity leaves since 1974. Today its citizens enjoy 480 days parental leave with parents paid 946 Swedish Krona (RM425.79) a day by the government.

The recent Budget 2015 announcement by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak saw an increase of maternity leave for civil servants starting January 1.

There was no mention of a similar policy for the private sector, which remains at 60 days.

Singapore allows women a minimum of 12 weeks paid leave if the parent has one child. The employer is required to pay the employee's full wages for the first eight weeks while the government pays for the remaining four weeks.

Meanwhile, the private sector should consider increasing leave to enable new mothers to spend more time with their babies, said Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim.

The Women, Family and Community development minister said they were in talks with the Human Resource Ministry to allow mothers time off from the current 60 days allocated for maternity leave under the Employment Act 1955.

'But employees and their unions in the private sector are the best people to pressure employers into increasing maternity leave," she said.

She cited National Union of Bank Employmees (NUBE) as having successfully increased maternity leave in the banking industry.

Rohani said changing the Act would be difficult as the ministry would not want to jeopardise its mission to increase the percentage of women in the workforce to 55 pc next year.

"There are pros and cons to reviewing a policy that affects the private sector. If we increase it, it could become a deterrent for employers to hire women."

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Rohani said the one-year leave was throughout the duration of the individual's service with the government and it was up to the civil servant to divide the leave accordingly based on the number of children she plans to have.

'The use of such leave is up to the discussion of the civil servant and her superior. It is flexible and can be extended to using it to send a child to clinic or to care for the child if he or she is sick."

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