Worst paternity leave in Europe puts UK parents off having more kids | ITV News

18 comments

1. Late stage capitalism really is not family friendly in the slightest. Both parents need to work full time, childcare is too expensive, housing is too expensive and grandparents don’t seem to be so open to helping out as much as they uses too. Our culture has changed too, we used to have kids young and poor and the family would level up with time. My parents had four of us and were very skint when we were young but as we got older and our parents got promoted we became better off and we moved into a bigger house. The family unit was stronger too, now people seem to want to be a lot more independent and go alone and want to be 100% sorted before having children and often leave it to late.. So its a whole combination of things leading to our low birthrate.

2. From the article:

   “The UK has the worst statutory paternity leave in Europe, and it’s putting parents off having more children, a survey shared with ITV News has found.

   British fathers are entitled to just two weeks off work after their child is born and are paid a maximum of £187.18 a week.

   The European average is eight weeks at 100% of earnings.”

   **I really don’t think this is a major factor** explaining why British couples are putting off having more children.

   Much bigger concerns for parents are the UK cost of living crisis, including seemingly ever higher percentage of income being used for housing & utilities and the rising cost of childcare, plus increasing job insecurity and a general lack of confidence in the UK economy.

   Having said that, I think a standard 4 weeks leave for new fathers on full pay is a good idea. **That first month is very tough!**

3. And yet in terms of fertility rates in 2025 we are middling in Europe (higher than Germany, Netherlands, Italy, and particularly Spain and Sweden where the article makes a point about the paternity leave they get). Question is thus, does paternity leave make that much difference? And to be clear I am not saying better paternity leave is not a good thing, just that I am not seeing the link.

4. It’s not just the money. Having kids has been culturally portrayed as absolutely killing any ability to live your own life. And in many ways that is true. Also, it’s harder than ever to connect with other people – the sense of community has disintegrated, and with the proliferation of online lives, there’s less time to meet people offline. In person. The birth rate is down 20% IIRC both here in the UK and in the US from 2008-now which has even worse parental leave rates (and none statutory). There’s lower rates of teen pregnancy too.

5. We are (at the very least among) the most expensive country in the world to raise a child. That’s certainly a factor. We’ve managed to create a world which is hostile to raising children by essentially forcing people to live in dual income households with completely unaffordable childcare and no statutory flexibility required by employers to work around kids.

6. An extra child requires more space in the house. Housing is really expensive.

7. So it’s not the escalating costs of, well, *everything* it’s the very limited amount of paternity leave?

   Sure, Jan.

8. And the rest.

   Over priced child care. Where it is often better for one in a couple not to work otherwise the majority of their salary goes into child care AND they don’t see their child grow up.

   Child benefits brackets hurting anyone who starts to earn some ok money.

   Cost of housing.

   Governments generally sorting out old people. Things like pension triple lock, reinstating winter fuel repayments yet the young don’t get any breaks. Like when someone leaves uni with massive debt and pay hundreds a month towards their loan. That could have been their money getting on the property ladder or planning a family.

   I’m 43 and have a house, two children and a decent enough job but out of a total of 5 adults across my family and my wife’s. Only we have children. A generation ago we had cousins left right and center.

   The only potential saving grace ahead is the Boomers are all going to die and transfer wealth across. If it isn’t swallowed by taxes and the bankrupting cost of elderly care.

9. Decades of “don’t have kids if you can’t afford it” really backfiring.

10. From my understanding and past research, it seems as if the UK falls in the top 3 countries for highest childcare costs in the world. Maybe even the worst if you’re not able to receive subsidies.

    Frankly, if more people had money, there’d be more children.

11. The evidence is pretty clear the declining birthrate isn’t much to do with money or this kind of thing, poor people have always had kids in the past. It’s liberalism and atheism removing itself from the gene pool. Today Conservatives have slightly more kids, but religious conservatives have the highest amount by far. The women having the most kids in the UK? Orthodox Jews, Catholic women at 2.5 average, and various religious minorities. Same trend everywhere.

    The boomers are the inflection point, where they grew up religious so had kids but then dropped it during adulthood and didn’t continue the tradition, so now their own children are atheists. Atheists simply don’t have many kids, and there’s little cultural push to have them.

12. Boosting birth rate is also essential on reducing our reliance on immigrants in the long term. I simply don’t know why all major political parties do so little on this.

13. As someone in the UK about to take my 2 weeks unpaid leave once my baby comes, I agree.

14. £1500 rent for a room is what’s putting people off having kids 

15. People still wouldn’t have significantly more kids, even if such leave were much more generous.

    This has been an ongoing thing since the birth control pill was invented.

16. Maternity Leave 16 weeks 80% of pay Min £160, max £800/week

    Paternity Leave 4 weeks 80% of pay Same min/max as maternity

    Shared Parental Leave (SPL) 26 weeks 50% of pay Min £160, max £800/week; can be split between parents

    SPL Leave Structure 4-week minimum blocks Flexible use anytime in first 24 months

    Eligibility 3 months continuous employment Applies to all workers (FT/PT)

    I’ve been thinking about this for years and spent the last half an hour playing with figures and policy ideas and this seems the best (rudimentary version).

    Does double existing costs but pays for itself long term and drastically improves shared parental leave usage by x10.

17. We have choices now, we just choose not to have children. I don’t want them.

18. The UK doesn’t have the worst paternity leave in Europe.

    It’s just a culture that is no longer centered around having kids.

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