Maternity leave in Australia : Patterns of use and return to work

This paper presents findings from an Australian survey of parents of young children, conducted in 2005 as a nested study within the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The survey was designed to fill the considerable statistical gap in Australia on eligibility for and utilisation of leave arrangements by mothers and fathers at the time of the birth of a child. In addition, it sought to inform analysis of the influences on, and impact of, leave-taking. In this paper we focus specifically on the use of maternity leave, presenting an overview of pre-birth employment and eligibility status, utilisation of maternity and other types of leave, and changes in employment status on return to work. This statistical backdrop is then extended with preliminary analyses of influences on the uptake of maternity leave and changes in career prospects on return to work. As might be expected in the absence of a national paid maternity leave scheme, mothers tend to use complex combinations of leave types, with use of paid maternity leave influenced most strongly by employment characteristics such as sector and permanency of contract. The most common change on return to work was from full-time to part-time status, which was also one of the transitions most likely to be associated with perceptions of decreased career opportunities. Although preliminary at this stage, the analysis highlights the potential of these survey data to inform more comprehensive investigations into employment transitions around parenthood than have been possible to date in Australia