In a new report, Productive Parents, Reform criticised current parentalleave arrangements for treating fathers as an 'irrelevance' andfavouring wealthy mothers.
The study claims that Britain has one of the most old-fashioned parentalleave systems in the developed world. It says that mothers earning50,000 a year and taking six months leave receive nearly 8,000 from the taxpayer, while those on the minimum wage, equating to12,000 a year, receive only 4,500.
The disparity exists because the first six weeks of maternity pay arebased on 90 per cent of the mother's salary. The remaining 33 weeks arepaid at either the standard weekly rate of 123.06 or at 90 percent of the mother's average weekly earnings.
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