Dynamics of parental leave in Anglophone countries: the paradox of state expansion in liberal welfare regimes

Abstract

This paper evaluates parental leave policies across six Anglophone countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA) to assess system fit with a liberal welfare regime classification. The focus is on comparison within welfare regime classification (rather than between regimes), enabling complexity and variation to be explored. The comparative policy analysis uses national government and international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data sources with case studies of policy change between 2004 and 2014 in Australia and the UK. Evidence suggests that contrary to market-oriented, liberal welfare regime predictions, there has been an expanding role of the state in developing parental leave policies, extending their duration and increasing the payment level. With the exception of the USA, parental leave provision, predominately maternal in focus, is embedded in the state policies of contemporary liberal welfare countries.

Este documento evalúa las políticas de permiso parental en seis países anglófonos (Anglofonía – Australia, Canadá, Irlanda, Nueva Zelanda, el Reino Unido y los Estados Unidos de América) para determinar la compatibilidad entre los sistemas de licencia parental y una clasificación liberal de los regímenes de bienestar. Se centra en la comparación dentro de los países que satisfacen la clasificación de los regímenes de bienestar, (en vez de entre los regímenes), lo que permitiría una exploración de la complejidad y la variación. El análisis comparativo de políticas utiliza fuentes de datos de gobiernos nacionales e internacionales de la OCDE (Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico ‘OECD’ en inglés), con estudios de caso del cambio de política entre 2004–2014 en Australia y el Reino Unido. La evidencia sugiere que contrariamente a las predicciones de los regímenes de bienestar liberales orientados al mercado, hubiera un creciente papel del estado en el desarrollo de las políticas de los padres, ampliando su duración y aumentando el nivel de pago. Con la excepción de los EE.UU., la provisión del permiso parental, predominantemente materna en el foco, se incrusta en las políticas del estado de países liberales contemporáneos.

Keywords:

• parental leave policies
• maternity leave
• welfare regimes
• Australia
• the UK
• fathers

Palabras claves:

• políticas de permiso parental
• el permiso de maternidad
• países de habla inglesa (Anglofonía)
• Australia
• Reino Unido
• los regímenes de bienestar
• padres

Notes on contributors

Professor Marian Baird is Professor of Employment Relations and Director of the Women♀ Work Research Group in the University of Sydney Business School, Australia.

Professor Margaret O’Brien is Director of the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the University College London, Institute of Education, UK.

Notes

1. We exclude Quebec because of its French-speaking and separate policy status in Canada. For more detail see Doucet, Lero & Tremblay (2014) and Tremblay (2014). The UK, Ireland and New Zealand have unitary system of government. Australia, Canada and the USA are federations, a feature that adds to the potential for layers of policy arrangements.

2. Professor Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay in Canada, Professor Eileen Drew in Ireland and Dr K Ravenswood in New Zealand.

3. We acknowledge that in the same time frame and perhaps for similar reasons, there have also been considerable shifts in the parental leave policies provided by employers and/or bargained for by unions, not covered here. This is an area that space precludes us from detailing, but arguments from Berg, Kossek, Baird, and Block (2013) suggest that the interaction between public policy and union bargaining is complex and relates also to the bargaining structure of the particular country.

4. However, the legislation does introduce new flexibilities within shared parental leave whereby each parent can alter leave arrangements up to three times (in continuous or discontinuous blocks) before the end of week 52 (unpaid from week 40). Employers are only legally obliged to agree to continuous block arrangements.

5. The dynamic and fluid nature of policy development continues as the paper goes to press. In January 2015 the Australian PM dropped his new PPL scheme proposal in favour of a yet unspecified ‘families package’ and in February 2015, as part of the forthcoming May general election, the UK Labour Party Leader proposes an increase in Paternity Leave from two weeks to one month with an increase in pay replacement levels.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/K003739/1].