Hooray to 84-days Paid Maternity Leave Proposal
The much-awaited and long overdued proposal is finally here. I must laud our Women, Family and Community Development Ministry under Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil for its commitment to push to increase the current 60-days paid maternity leave to 84-days for working mums in the civil services and subsequently look into the implementation in the private sectors.
According Datuk Seri Sharizat, the Cabinet committee on Gender Equality, chaired by the Prime Minister, had responded positively to the proposal. “The Prime Minister has been very forthcoming and we hope to make the announcement within a month,” she said yesterday.
It was reported that 83% of the countries in the world provide 12-weeks paid maternity leave or more. Check out this link for details. Parental leave. If materialized, Malaysia would be one of the first countries in the peripheral region to implement 12-weeks 100% paid maternity leave.
Being a working mum who have always supported breastfeeding for at least the first 6 months of our babies’ life, I am 100% supportive of this proposal. However, I am afraid that it may be a hindrant for the female employees to climb the corporate ladders. Some irresponsible employers in the private sectors may not want to take in married female employees with the believe that they may be less productive in their work. I have known of some employers who posted questions like "do you plan to have any babies in near future?" during interviews with married female interviewees.
Before I got married, I attended an interview with a giant multinational company and was asked this question, "do you have a boyfriend?" The HR guy who interviewed me explained that they need to know my future marital plans! What a discrimination to females!! There are even employers who set the maternity leave as one of the key performance indicators in the job performance assessment!
Regardless of how the employers may have reacted to this new act, if at all materialized, all working mums will definitely appreciate the 84-days leave. Let us pray that Datuk Seri Sharizat will deliver her promise to make us, full time working mums’ dream comes true…Keep our fingers crossed.
Where I work, in a school under Kent County, we have 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay. Most women return to work after a year if they plan their finance properly.
Comment by leesejudy — October 1, 2006 @ 5:19 am