Men and Women equal? No, never.

[Tiberius]

Yes I agree in principle, but you can understand the rational behind it. Women by their very nature will be worse off than Men without mandatory maternity leave, Men can have children without needing to be pregnant and taking time off, but women cannot. How else are we as a society going to have children if we penalize every career-driven woman who actually wants to have a child? Bottom line is children need to be born one way or the other, and I can see why the UK govt believes that women shouldn't be penalized for it (although they regularly are anyway).

If a woman is career driven, she either (a) shouldn't be having a baby in the first place; babies are careers... or (b) should allow the husband or nanny to look after the baby and return to work as soon as she can. There is no reason why a woman (assuming all goes well with the pregnancy) couldn't take a few months off to give birth and recover, and then return to work whilst the husband / nanny looks after the baby.

A year for maternity leave is ridiculous. It may well be fine for large companies, but what about small businesses? They can't afford to pay an employee for a year whilst they are receiving absolutely no work from them. What about people who decide to have a large number of kids? There should be protections against people who have a kid every year and try to claim a year's worth of maternity leave for each kid.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Tell me; what incentive does a woman who wants a career have if she's going to be told to fuck off without pay the minute she falls pregnant? Do you want a country of stay-at-home mums living off the taxpayer or do you want women to work as well?

Firstly, I wouldn't support a company that decided to fire someone the minute they fell pregnant. I think that would be discrimination, as a pregnant woman can work well until quite late in her pregnancy (depending on the job of course). However, if she decides she wants to raise the kid, she shouldn't expect the company to pay her whilst she does it.

So only rich people should be able to have a baby? Eveyone else should quit their jobs and raise their kids on benefits? That's a LOVELY sentiment.

That's not what I said. People should plan for babies; make sure that they will be earning enough to raise it well, and expect that one of the couple will be away from work for a while. The government shouldn't be dictating corporate policy; it isn't their responsibility to tell corporations how to treat employees who make life-changing decisions that can affect the company down the line...it's up to the company.

Besides, plenty of people raise kids of benefits, and seem to do just fine. A lot of them (in the UK at least) seem to take advantage of the benefits system and have more children than even a moderately couple could afford to bring up. I'm more concerned with couples who do that, because I believe that growing up in a small house and having a mother look after a large number of children is going to have an adverse affect on their upbringing.