I paid tax for years – only for maternity pay to leave me financially crippled

There are plenty of misconceptions around maternity leave; that it’s a holiday, that it’s relaxing, that it’s all long lunches and coffees, like an extended city break in your own hometown. And while there are some lovely moments, for a lot of women, it’s the very opposite of a holiday; no sleep, relentless work, long, lonely days and stress. Not least, for many, regarding money.

Maternity leave can be extremely financially challenging – especially as someone who is self-employed.

When I went on maternity leave at the end of 2022 as a freelance journalist, I claimed the government’s statutory payment (SMP). I was eligible for £313.32 every two weeks for 39 weeks (or £156.66 per week). So £626.64 a month. I don’t know about you but that nowhere near covers my bills – nor the added expense of becoming a parent; the cots and buggies and bottles and nappies and baby grows and sterilisers that all become necessary.

In our household, I was fortunate enough that my partner’s salary could cover us. However much it made my feminist instincts wince to agree to this arrangement. It also meant I had to cut back on luxuries that felt unjustifiable, like magazine subscriptions or my Nike trainers habit. I have absolutely no idea how a single parent would manage – although they remarkably do. In other cases, I’ve seen many women plan extensively. I know one who saved for years in advance to be able to afford a baby.

In the years since my maternity leave, SMP has increased and now the maximum allowance is £194.32 a week (about £777 a month) or 90 per cent of your average weekly earnings (whichever is less). This marks a shift from abysmal to slightly less abysmal, especially when you consider that the National Minimum wage is £12.71 per hour, which works out just under £477 a week.

When you’ve been diligently paying taxes for years, earning a wage, attempting to create security and independence, this drop in income is staggering – and life can look precarious. Especially when, as any millennial will tell you, saving is harder than ever.

Aside from the added stress of pregnancy, I know it’s not unusual to already feel sidelined and unsupported as a freelancer. Protections feel flimsy; payments are notoriously late, and late payment fines are rarely taken notice of. There’s no sick pay or HR or training opportunities or company wellness plans.

I have fallen foul of being a freelancer, perhaps most painfully when a company owed me £9,000. The bankrupt media brand kept giving me the work without the funds to pay me. I never saw any of that money. This way of working isn’t for the fainthearted.

And women have all got stories of being overlooked or spoken over at work. We know about pregnancy and maternity discrimination. We know about workplace sexual assault. We’re routinely blocked from fully participating in the economy – punished for having children, underpaid, facing a pension gap, and disproportionately working part-time, as well as about to take the brunt of AI.

And so it’s not hard to see how vulnerable it can be as a female freelancer, especially when pregnant. And yet, for many women, being freelance is the only viable option to hold onto a career after kids, especially as a single parent or if your children have specific health needs.

We need the flexibility to access the workforce and to continue to do the lion share of the caring – which we are still expected to do. Often, we’re freelance because we’re mothers, and yet the pitiful maternity allowance seems to punish us precisely because we’re trying to be mothers or grow our families – and in some cases, actively deter us altogether.

If we try to make it work, it can be very stressful. Self-employed friends have found themselves forced to work with their babies at two, three, or four months old, often when they are far from emotionally or physically ready, still getting minimal sleep, with an aching, leaking body, terrified at both saying no to work and being written off as a distracted, unambitious, mum, but also of how they are going to pay for life.

Of course, the essentials take priority, like rent, mortgage, food, bills, yet I know women who have had to give up things that made them feel like themselves, things that might sound trivial – like haircuts or a manicure – but can be incredibly important in the disorientating and transformative experience of having a baby.

Just this week, the ONS announced fertility has hit a 50-year low. In all the inevitable analysis that will likely follow, is anyone asking the most obvious question – but how can many women afford to do this? Even if they have worked full-time and paid into the system for years and years, often without claiming, when it comes to becoming a parent the financial situation they’re put in is precarious.

Maternity allowance for freelancers must be better. We are a legitimate part of the tax-paying workforce, often demonstrating exceptional multi-tasking skills and always delivering high quality at bargain rates – as society demands. For many, freelance work is our last link to the workforce. Such little financial support during pregnancy threatens to sever that tie for good. For others, it means the decision to start a family will simply be put off again.