FOI REF: FOI-2024-1744
You asked
I would like to find out if you have any data/information on the following topics:
- How many parents went on maternity or paternity leave in the UK?
- What were the average lengths for paternity leave and maternity leave respectively?
- How many people got paternity leave with 90% pay for more than 2 weeks? And how many got only the statutory paternity pay?
- How many got maternity leave with 90% pay for more than 6 weeks? And how many got only the statutory maternity pay?
- If you don’t have this information, is it possible to collect it and include it in the Labour Force Survey?
We said
Thank you for your query regarding maternity and paternity pay and the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
The LFS aims to provide estimates of the state of the labour market at the reference period for the survey. It asks individuals a range of questions about their personal characteristics and circumstances and their current standing within the labour market at time of interview. This would include whether they are on maternity or paternity leave at that time. It is not the aim of the survey to look at the labour market interactions of individuals over time.
Consequently, the survey could be used to estimate the number of people on maternity or paternity leave at the point of interview. However, there has not been significant user requirement for this to form part of our regular outputs. Any estimate would be subject to high sampling variability due to the small sample sizes involved. Since periods of maternity and paternity leave can differ, it would not be able to estimate how many parents went on maternity leave or the length of that leave over any period of time.
While the survey also looks at someone’s earnings, again this concerns how much they earned in the reference week rather than comparisons with their pay levels at times other than the reference week.
In order to maintain as high a level of response as possible it is essential to keep the survey as short as possible, only asking questions for which there is a clear policy requirement. Such detailed information on parental leave is generally not suitable for collection on the survey and there have not been policy department requests for further information in this topic area.