A 90-day maternity leave is a step in the right direction

Next, Malaysia should work towards increasing paternity leave.

WHEN it was announced during the Budget 2020 speech that private sector maternity leave will be increased from 60 to 90 days, many parents and parents-to-be breathed a sigh of relief.

While the 90-day benefit – which aligns with the public sector maternity leave allocation – does not match up to International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards of 98 days as initially proposed by the Human Resources Ministry, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction.

Unsurprisingly, the initiative sparked some rumblings among employers.

A Malaysian footwear designer commented that three months’ leave is “a little bit too long” and that it might deter employers from putting women into high ranking positions.

In one of my private WhatsApp groups, a small and medium enterprise (SME) owner questioned the negative impact it may have on their business. And although the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) did not wholly object to an increase in maternity leave, they did raise concerns about the additional cost employers would have to bear and called for alternative solutions to lift some of the financial implications for businesses.

Still, while we need to acknowledge that there will be sectors negatively affected by the move, the overall benefits of a longer maternity leave cannot be understated.

The biggest positive change will be felt by families, particularly mothers.

For one, most new Malaysian mothers will undergo confinement, where they are unable to leave their homes for at least a month while they heal from pregnancy and birth, and adjust to the new responsibilities of motherhood. All of these involve significant emotional and physical transitions which will require time.

Apart from bonding with their baby, new parents will also need to look for suitable nurseries and ensure that the child is comfortable with their new caregiver. The breastfeeding mother will then have to accustom the baby to bottle feeding. Having just one month after confinement to get all this done is, quite frankly, madness.

The above scenarios assume that the mother and child have not experienced any birth complications. But not all pregnancies are the same.

Children who are born premature or other birth complications will require a lot more attention from parents and doctors. Mothers may also need additional time to recover particularly if they had a caesarean-section birth or are faced with other physical difficulties or psychological stress such as postnatal depression.

Longer maternity leave will allow more time for parents to cope with these challenges and return to the workforce better prepared.

This is not mere speculation. A 2014 research published in the Journal Of Health, Politics, Policy And Law found that longer maternity leave – up to six months – lowers the rate of postpartum depression, which can affect about 13% of mothers.

Companies may feel that providing an additional month’s leave could hurt them financially, but there are actually bigger long term benefits.

This is recognised by business bigwigs like Google, Facebook and Netflix who dole out generous parental leave. Locally, CIMB Bank has received praise for providing six months paid maternity and one month paid paternity leave to firsttime parents. After all, supportive companies generally produce happier and more motivated workers, which translates to better productivity.

A significant difference here is that big companies are better positioned to bear the increased initial cost.

It is the SMEs who might face difficulties funding an additional one month leave – and they make up a large number of businesses in Malaysia. Out of one million registered and active employers nationwide, 98% of them are SMEs. Out of these SMEs, 60%, or about 650,000, are micro employers with fewer than five staff members.

The question now is how do we strike a balance and support both mothers and SMEs at the same time?

One option is to provide tax exemptions or other benefits that might mitigate the cost.

Alternatively, we can look across the Causeway where the Singapore government partially foots the bill for maternity leave. Another course of action would be to expand social security coverage to include maternity leave. All this can be targeted towards SMEs.

A few weeks ago while attending an event about empowering women, I was disheartened to hear an attendee say that if too much maternity leave is given, employers may be discouraged from hiring women.

This problem could be addressed by anti-discrimination laws for job-seekers, which Malaysia has yet to introduce.

Equally important, Malaysia should move towards normalising the idea of providing three months’ maternity leave as a positive way to support a productive work environment and viewing it as a means of attracting and retaining talented female employees.

Women’s labour force participation in Malaysia – currently at 55.8%, compared to 80.9% for men – is one of the lowest in South-East Asia. Vietnam and Singapore, which reported a female participation rate of more than 60% last year, provide 182 and 112 days of maternity leave respectively.

Ultimately, we need to expand paternity leave in the country.

Fathers also want to be part of their child’s first few weeks of life, and at an emotional level should not be deprived of this.

If new fathers are given at least a month of leave after the birth of their child, they can use this time to bond with the baby and do share of caregiving while mothers recover during the confinement period.

This would encourage the view of parenting as a shared responsibility and lead to a more equitable allocation of care work among couples.

Many studies have shown that when a father takes paternity leave, it increases his involvement in the child’s life and overall development for years after.

If longer mandatory paternity leave is given to fathers, then the cost impact would also be distributed more evenly across the labour market thus reducing hiring discrimination against women.

Presently, the public sector gets seven days mandatory paternity leave while the government has proposed a three-day paternity leave for the private sector.

The most common complaint one hears in opposition to maternity leave is a moral judgement placed upon mothers which adds to the discrimination they face: “Why should companies bear the cost of a couple’s ‘personal choice’.”

Statements such as these fail to consider the advantages that children bring to all of us as Malaysians. As an ageing nation with dropping fertility rates from 6.7% in 1957 to an expected 1.91% in 2020, the least we could do is to provide support to parents who are doing something that benefits both society and country.