One in four eligible mothers not taking up paid parental leave

The report by the Australian Institute of Family Affairs linked 2021 Census data with Australian Tax Office data to explore the take-up of Parental Leave Pay (PLP) and Dad and Partner Pay (DAPP) - the government payments to support parents to take time off work to care for their baby.

From 2023 PLP and DAPP were combined into one payment.

The report found an estimated 74 per cent of eligible mothers and 40 per cent of eligible fathers were taking up government-funded paid parental leave prior to the reform.

Mothers working in government jobs had the highest uptake of PLP (85 per cent) and those working in small businesses had the lowest (66 per cent). Fathers who worked for businesses (39-46 per cent) and state or local government (30 per cent) were most likely to take up DAPP.

Vulnerable groups had lower levels of take-up of the government payments, including parents with poor English language proficiency, lowest-income parents, parents with disability, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents.

Port Macquarie new mum Stephanie Vergano told ACM paid parental leave has been "incredibly important" for her family.

The teacher recently gave birth to her second child Felicity this month and is accessing the federal government's paid parental leave as she had been with her employer for less than 12 months.

She said the first few weeks have been "precious" but admitted they weren't easy.

"The endless feeding and wake-ups," she said. "It seems like the days blur into one another, and I just pick an arbitrary time of day to decide it is now 'the next morning'.

"Felicity is definitely worth all of it and every little sacrifice has paled in comparison to being able to be called Felicity's mum."

Lead author of the study Dr Jennifer Baxter told ACM it was important to explore barriers to the payment.

"Government-funded payments are a critical support for parents without employer-funded leave to look after their baby while staying connected to work," Dr Baxter said.

'We see the importance of the program in the high proportion of mothers who were likely in jobs without employer-funded leave using PLP early - like hospitality and small businesses.

'Without the support of government-funded parental leave, it's likely that many wouldn't stay connected to work, and that may lead to long career breaks which makes it harder to re-enter the workforce later."

In March the Australian parliament passed legislation to extend its total paid leave offered to new parents to 26 weeks, up from 20 weeks, beginning in 2026.

The rate is the equivalent of the national minimum wage of $882.7 a week.

The scheme is set to cost about $4.4 billion a year from 2026/27.