Analysis Of Paid Parental Leave

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Paid parental leave is an employee benefit provided to new parents in most countries around the world. It has been a hot button issue in Australia for decades and the question of whether or not both parents should be allowed to take parental leave is still contentious. The debate has centered around whether new parents should be granted paid or unpaid leave and how long they should be allowed to take off from their job. In the past, Australians were only allowed to take up to 52 weeks’ unpaid parental leave and paid parental leave was not enacted until 2010. Today, it is up to the individual employer and their human resource department to decide if the employee is qualified for parental leave or not. The aim of this paper is …show more content…

In the 1990’s, this privilege was extended to paternity leave which allowed fathers to take unpaid time off to care for their children while also guaranteeing them the right to return to their workplace after their leave. Paid parental leave was finally enacted in 2010 allowing Australian parents to not only stay home with their young ones but also receive funding from the government, given they met certain minimum requirements. (Dreyfus …show more content…

It was an intent to change the PPL scheme to restrict the allowance of 18 weeks of funding. This adjustment was supposed to be issued on July 2016, and could hypothetically reduce half of qualified mothers, to achieve the full fund. The reason why the government wants to limit access is because of ‘double-dipping’, implying women who applied for access the government 's scheme as well as the employer schemes. This new change could lead to saving up to one billion in over four years. Although, this issue is critical not only because of the potential savings but also as the women who had used both schemes were committing frauds. (Kaine, S

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