Question: Australia has to date not legislated for paid maternity leave, unlike most other
countries. Assess who should take responsibility for paid maternity leave. Explain the
reasons for your response.
Paid maternity leave is defined as income replacement to compensate for the leave from
paid employment necessary around child-birth (Baird, 2002a:2). In the developed world
today, many western countries have designed a legislated for paid maternity leave such as
Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, New Zealand and more. Indeed only USA and
Australia have to date not legislated for paid maternity leave across the workforce (ONeill,
2004: E-Brief). This consequently placed the responsibility on three different groups in
Australia including employers who value as the most significant role follow by the
government and finally their family, which three groups should have the purpose of giving
financial support and psycho-social health to pregnant women and their new infants.
Employers should be more crucial in taking the responsibility for paid maternity leave
compare to any others. There is evidence that maternity pay is good for business (NWJC,
1999:11.9). On the other the hand, government should become another role in taking the
responsibility for paid maternity leave. Indeed, Australia was amongst the first in the world
to provide a maternity allowance which is a payable on the birth of a child. This could be a
support to pregnant women, but the government should take further more responsibility for
paid maternity leave for specific reasons. In addition, family members should play part of
the responsibility for paid maternity leave, especially the husband. The Royal Womens
Hospital has conducted a research base on the source of income while women pregnant,
indicating that husbands become the role of taking responsibility for paid maternity leave
in a range of situations (Wendy, 2004).
Amongst three different groups, employers should weight the most for paid maternity
leave, not only because to provide economic support to their employees but more crucially
for a higher return in their investment as well as to retain high quality women staff. This
will be discussed after analysing the current situation women have in Australia.
Australia currently provides a reasonably comprehensive system of unpaid maternity leave
with a 52 weeks of unpaid maternity leave to women who have worked with their
employer for at least 12 continuous months in either a full time or part time basis
(HREOC, 2002:3.2.1). This ensure the right of women to return to position they held prior
to taking leave, however as women in Australia tend to have a large number employed in
