A Pregnant Pause: paid maternity leave in Australia

By Marion Baird, Deborah Brennan and Leanne Cutcher

There is a discernible shift in Australia with the transfer of the responsibility for paid maternity leave from the public arena to enterprise bargaining and even further to the confidential domain of company policy in Australia.

This shift is not improving the position of women in the workforce. The data presented by the authors demonstrates the limits of enterprise bargaining for equitably providing paid maternity leave. The reliance on business case strategies as a way of promoting the leave is also questioned. It is suggested that a broader-based approach is needed, which would involve regulation strategies, both legal and industrial, alongside business case strategies.

(Labour & Industry; vol. 13, no. 1, August 2002)