Australian Paid Parental Leave

Furthermore, it is essential to understand that parental leave is no longer an issue affecting women alone but also their male counterparts. Several organizations in Australia have implemented gender-neutral policies which help develop options for families. The West Australian University, for instance, is providing its employees, both fathers, and mothers paid parental leave on their full wage for six months (Karp, 2017). This means that both the fathers and the mothers can be granted parental leave. The fathers can assume the role of primary caregivers while the mothers may choose to return work. Hanson argues that the promotion of paid parental leave will encourage more women to get pregnant and the government of Australia will have the same challenges it had with the baby bonus.

She claims that many women will be getting pregnant so that they can access paid parental leave and as a result key changes will have to be made to the omnibus welfare bill to accommodate the increasing demands. According to Hanson, the provision of paid parental leave is not necessary. However, the majority of the working women, mainly from low-income classes, are stating that paid parental leave is very beneficial to them. Now the critical question is; who is right and who is wrong? Well, to answer this question it is important to explore both the pros and cons of the paid parental leave and make a conclusion based on those findings. Paid parental leave help minimize child care expenses which in most cases exceeds even the college expenses.

It is vital to know that paid parental leave is a valuable differentiator as organizations look for new methods of attracting top talent. Companies should provide parental leave despite the gender orientation to ensure that the primary caregivers spend some quality time with their newborns. According to a study conducted by a group of scholars at the University of Maryland, it is evident that parental leave not only improves parents’ mental health but also reduces the risk of postpartum depression (Baker, 2011). The study explains that maternity leave allows parents especially women to adjust to the new changes hence consequently decreasing the risk of postpartum depression. This is because during parental leave business operations still need to run; therefore to ensure a smooth running the company need to hire and train temporary and replacement employees which is usually a costly affair (Brennan, 2010).

Furthermore, there is a belief that provision of paid parental leave rubs non-parents in the wrong way. Employees without kids may view paid maternal leave as something that is being unjustly denied to them. The matter can adversely affect employee satisfaction, as well as, the overall morale in the workplace. There are some expectations in most Australian companies that workers should not take full parental leave or else risk being viewed as less dedicated to the organization. Australian Government Paid Maternal Leave Scheme provides that for employees to be eligible for the leave, they must have been at work for approximately ten-thirteen months before birth and worked for about 300 hours during that period (Mandal, 2018). Some of the entitlements which workers are required to receive during the paid leave include the sick and the annual leave.

However, the National Employment Standards also provides that employees are entitled to up to twelve months of unpaid maternal leave as long as the worker has been with the employer for over 12 months. h) Implementing gender-balanced parental leave Parental leave laws have become a key element in the Australian welfare policy; however despite implementation of paid maternal leave few men tend to take the leave. As a result, some Australian companies and employers are transforming their traditional parental leave policies to gender-neutral parental leave policies. Therefore, in this case, media can help influence the government and the citizens of Australia to adopt paid parental leave. However, when used inappropriately media can have adverse impacts of the reputation of both the companies and the individual involved.