The productivity council has been meeting to discuss maternity leave and whether there should be government funded or workplace funded leave for all working women in Australia. Different people and groups have spoken for and against and there have been many interesting arguments. The welfare of young children and women has been discussed widely, as has productivity.

For me the most interesting argument for paid maternity leave is childcare. In most areas of Australia at the moment there is a massive shortage of places in baby rooms. In our tough economic climate more women are going back to work earlier and many are leaving their young babies in childcare. If paid maternity were to be introduced it may just take the pressure off the childcare shortage. And as quality childcare centres lobby for better staff to child ratios, this reprieve may allow this to happen. Interesting…

Emma Anderson, Childcare Professional and Mum to Jasper.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 2:01 am and is filed under Child care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.