LabFam seminar “Maternity leave take-up in UK academia. Why are they hurrying back?” [21.02.2023]
What impact does maternity leave policy have on its actual take-up by mothers? Joanna Clifton Sprigg, Ph.D. (University of Bath) will answer this question. Her study focuses on a specific sector - higher education in the UK - where there is a wide variation in the financial coverage of packages offered by employers.
We will reveal that the results may suggest that the culture, research and teaching environment at universities may influence the decisions of academics in a different way to those - particularly mothers - employed in other sectors.
The seminar will be held on February 21st 2023 (Tuesday) from 1 p.m. till 2:30 p.m. on-site at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw (Długa 44/50) in room B002. The seminar will be held in English.
In order to take part in the seminar please register at: https://labfam.uw.edu.pl/event/maternity-leave-takeup/
Abstract:
In this paper we explore the effects of terms of maternity leave policy on the duration of leave taken by mothers, focusing on the higher education sector in the United Kingdom, where there is a wide variation in financial coverage of the packages offered by employers. We use unique newly collected individual level data for over 13,000 academic and professional services staff at Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the UK and add to it data on university characteristics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency and area-level characteristics from the Office for National Statistics. Using an instrumental variable approach, we find that on average academics take 2 additional weeks of leave for every additional week of full pay provided within the maternity leave package, when professional services staff take 2.7 additional weeks. Academics respond positively to the financial terms of the policy in departments with a lower proportion of teaching-only contracts, higher proportion of female employees and in institutions with above median generosity of the maternity leave package. These results may suggest the culture, research and teaching environment within departments may affect decisions of academics differently than of professional service staff.
