WOMEN IN THE workplace have long since faced challenges when it comes to the issue of maternity leave, in particular with how it can negatively impact on career progression.

Working mothers, or those who plan to be at some point in the future, often make huge sacrifices and in some cases face employment discrimination. The problem with current legislation in this area is that it treats genders differently and this unfortunately creates gender discrimination, as well as discrimination with regard to family status.

The fact that Irish employment law dictates that working mothers, and not working fathers, are automatically the care providers, continues to cause great harm and leaves women in the workplace wide open to bias, missed career advancement opportunities and salary gaps.

There are far too many examples of women being passed over and overlooked for promotional opportunities and career progression because their career is being impacted by the fact that they have, or might in the future have, a young family.

The 2022 Global Gender Gap report highlighted that only 24% of C-Suite roles in Ireland were held by women at the time of collating data. While progress has undoubtedly been made in recent years, we have a long way to go in terms of achieving gender equality in the workplace.

One solution in my view is that maternity, paternity and parental rights become shared and equal. This would involve changes in employment law that would allow parents to choose how these rights are taken.

Currently, in Ireland, maternity leave is a maximum of 26 weeks with the option to take an additional 16 weeks. Paternity leave is two weeks. Added together, this is 44 weeks. If there was an option to share these 44 weeks between different parents and genders, it would help prevent the discrimination that many women suffer. It would turn discrimination against a minority into discrimination against a majority, and we all know a majority doesn’t usually get discriminated against.

If we look at the rules around parental leave in Ireland; they currently entitle both parents to seven weeks each. So, why not create similar levels of equality for other forms of leave?

Equal under law

Ironically, the reason why women don’t have an equal footing on the career ladder is because maternity leave rights – weighted in favour of mothers – actually create discrimination against them.

If you remove the inevitability that it’s a mother who is entitled to more leave, and allow an optional share with their partner, it could go a long way in stopping gender and family status discrimination altogether.

It may in fact be the single greatest ploy to achieve equal gender pay in this country, as the introduction of shared maternity leave options would prevent potential bias or discrimination in this regard at the hiring stage.

Shared maternity leave would also allow new parents to make sounder financial decisions with regard to their family household income, especially in cases whereby the female in the relationship may earn more than their male partner.

It’s worth looking towards Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Finland and Iceland, which have adopted progressive and shared approaches to parental rights in the workplace. There has been a previous attempt to do so in Ireland but the Shared Maternity Leave and Benefit Bill 2018 did not receive government backing at the time and eventually lapsed in 2020.

Under the terms of the Bill, the Maternity Protection Acts 1994 and 2004 would be amended, and the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 would make a provision whereby parents could share their entitlement to maternity leave. Unfortunately, it appears that currently there is very little appetite to revisit the attempt, something I believe to be a great pity and possibly a huge oversight with the recent introduction of gender pay reporting legislation. Despite these new reporting measures, arguably one of the greatest causes of pay discrimination has yet to be tackled.

Choice is key

On the whole, I believe it should be down to choice, as some women might still be happy to take the majority of the leave entitlement, as is the current common practice.

However, where it suits parents better for the father to take a significant portion of this leave, then that should be available as an option.

In my view, the proposed but ultimately discarded 2018 Shared Maternity Leave and Benefit Bill contained some very positive and forward-thinking changes. It would be great to see some of its elements resurrected and used in future bills as a means of achieving real change in this area.

There is no doubt in my mind that this issue is a contributing factor in the continuing problem of a gender pay gap in Ireland, in particular at the senior management level, and legislation needs to be further explored, or at the very least put back on the agenda again.

Damien McCarthy is the Founder and CEO of HR Consultancy & HR Recruitment firm – HR Buddy. He is also an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). HR Buddy provides outsourced HR consultancy and compliance documentation and recruitment services to employers, nationwide.