Media release
Tuesday 8 September

Paid parental leave for better economic performance

The Families Commission is encouraging the Government to make further improvements to the paid parental leave scheme, including phasing in an extension of paid leave to 13 months, plus a month’s paid leave for fathers/partners. It says such moves will be not just be good for families but also for businesses and the economy.

Commissioner Bruce Pilbrow says New Zealand’s 14 weeks paid parental leave is very low by international standards. In most developed countries paid parental leave is at least 12 months. He says research also shows that employers strongly support paid parental leave because it allows them to plan and manage workloads with greater confidence and helps retain experienced staff.
“Research by the Commission shows that the early years are the most crucial time for parents to spend with their children,” says Mr Pilbrow. “For example, our research report Healthy families, young minds and developing brains demonstrates how a child’s experience of love, pleasure and security – or the lack of these – has a major impact on issues as diverse as family violence, crime, social and educational success and mental health; issues which cost this country a great deal more than the cost of supporting parents to raise great kids.”

“The Commission also produced, in 2007, the report It’s About Time, a significant piece of research that demonstrates that improvements to paid parental leave would benefit not only the wellbeing of children and families but employers and the economy.”

The renewal of the Commission’s call for improved paid parental leave policy follows information released on Monday 7 September by the Ministry of Education, which showed a big increase in the number of early child education centres with waiting times of more than six months. Part of the problem has been attributed to more parents having to go back to work at the end of their 14 weeks paid parental leave for financial reasons, not necessarily because they want to, creating extra pressure on early childhood care and education facilities.

“Parents should be able to choose what is best for them and their children,” Mr Pilbrow says. “Some will want to go back to work relatively quickly and that should be their choice, but our research indicates that a great many mothers would rather spend more time at home, but feel compelled by economic and societal pressure to go back to work. We have to ask ourselves what sort of signal we are sending about parenting when we seem to place a greater value on work than caring for our children.”

“It is significant,” Mr Pilbrow says, “that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has identified low expenditure on young people as an issue for New Zealand, noting that we rank 29th for children’s health and safety among the OECD countries and have some of the highest rates of youth suicide, teenage pregnancy and child poverty in the developed world. This is a terrible cost to us socially and economically.

“Clearly, improvements to paid parental leave will not, alone, solve some of these issues, but what a great start it would be for our children, and great insurance against problems in the future, if parents could afford to spend the time they want to with their children in those crucial early years.”

The following links take you to the Families Commission’s website publications on this issue.

It's About Time: Towards a parental leave policy that gives New Zealand families real choice full report: http://www.nzfamilies.org.nz/files/parental-leave.pdf

Healthy Families, Young Minds and Developing Brains - Enabling all children to reach their potential http://www.nzfamilies.org.nz/files/RF-Healthy-Families.pdf

Finding Time - Parents' long working hours and time impact on family life: http://www.nzfamilies.org.nz/files/finding-time.pdf

ENDS

© Scoop Media