Hot on the heels of two high-ranking female corporate executives telling Parliament that employment laws that are biased in favor of women (such as those governing parental leave) run the risk of disadvantaging female employees, comes a survey commissioned by Red Magazine.  Read about it here (Telegraph, 10/16/09).

It finds that 74% of women think that women should receive parental leave from work even if they're not parents.  Whether the leave would be paid, as is parental leave, the article doesn't say.  But whatever the case, it's a remarkable finding.

We all understand the concept behind parental leave; parents with newborns should be permitted to take some time off work to care for and simply be with their child.  Newborns shouldn't have their parents rushing off to work days after they've first entered the world.  That's simple enough.

And of course Britain's law regarding parental leave is blatantly discriminatory against fathers.  Mothers get up to a year off with 39 weeks paid, while fathers get a grand total of 2 weeks.

But what is the argument for allowing women, but apparently not men, time off just because?  Some say that, in this recession, employers would like to let some employees have time off, but of course the survey question is not about recessionary times, but all times.

The survey results were met with alarm by business groups who said that it would be very difficult for many employers if they were forced to offer leave, even if unpaid.

Corin Taylor, Senior Policy Adviser at the Institute of Directors, said: “This is a nonsensical idea in the best of times. But in the deepest post-war recession, granting rights to women without children would be foolish.”

Many British government and corporate leaders seem to think that the UK is having a hard time keeping up with international business competition as it is.  So giving more perqs to employees seems to them like the wrong way to go.  Giving them for no apparent reason and in a discriminatory fashion, seems like additional reasons to consign this bad idea to the rotary file.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Men, Women and Work. You can trackback from your own site.