Dusan Petkovic/ShutterstockWhen Labour won the 2024 general election, parental leave reform was one of its promises to working families. The manifesto committed to reviewing the parental leave system within the first year of government and making parental leave a right from the first day of employment.The Employment Rights Act 2025 has delivered on these commitments. From April 6, 2026, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave became day-one rights, removing longstanding service qualifying periods that had disproportionately excluded parents in newer or more precarious employment. A new entitlement for bereaved parents who lose their partner within the first year of their child’s birth provides up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave, addressing a significant gap in statutory provision for surviving partners.But do these changes go far enough for families? Statutory maternity and paternity pay has risen from £187.18 to just £194.32 a week, barely keeping pace with inflation. Fathers can now take paternity leave from their first day of employment, but statutory paternity pay remains subject to 26 weeks’ service, meaning many new starters will still take leave unpaid. Self-employed mothers can claim Maternity Allowance for up to 39 weeks, but no equivalent exists for self-employed fathers.While the changes are welcome, they are adjustments rather than wholesale change: what the Women and Equalities Committee cautioned in 2025 would “let down” families. They leave intact a system in which mothers bear the majority of care work and fathers are largely excluded or pushed to take unpaid leave. The government’s approach reflects the persistence of what welfare policy scholars call a liberal welfare model where the state intervenes minimally, leaving families to make their own choices about work and care. In practice, those choices are heavily shaped by the policies on offer and create uneven access.Unchanged for decadesThe UK’s parental leave system has evolved since the first Maternity Allowance was introduced in 1948, but its fundamental architecture has remained largely unchanged for decades. Shared Parental Leave, which came into effect in April 2015, was designed to enable couples to split care more equally. In practice, fewer than two in every 100 eligible fathers use it. At £194 a week, less than half the National Living Wage, statutory pay is too low for most families. The system still requires mothers to give up part of their own entitlement rather than giving fathers independent rights of their own.Analysis from the Office of National Statistics shows that mothers’ monthly earnings drop by an average of 42% in the five years after their first child, around £1,051 a month. Mothers face a ‘caring penalty’ to their wages. Bricolage/Shutterstock Charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates this “caring penalty” can exceed £100,000 in lost gross pay over six years. When leave pay is this low, families in which men are higher earners cannot afford for fathers to take extended leave. This is a constrained choice shaped by financial realities rather than parental preference. Research also shows that fathers’ experiences of workplace leave policies depend heavily on whether they have a supportive manager. Employees are left responsible for knowing and asserting their own entitlements.Left out altogetherAround 4 million people in the UK are self-employed, and those on zero-hours contracts or agency work face similar exclusions from paid parental leave. Research I conducted with colleagues at the University of Lincoln examined fathers in precarious work. It shows that exclusion from leave prevents them from bonding with their baby in the early weeks and supporting their partner through a demanding transition. Who takes leave, and how much, is also shaped by race, income and employment type. Research shows that ethnic minority parents, those on lower incomes or who are in more manual occupations are less likely to perceive Shared Parental Leave as an option, be eligible for it or take it up. The design of the system has consistently favoured professional, dual-income couples. The countries that have made the most progress on equal parenting give each parent their own non-transferable entitlement, paid at a level that makes it financially viable. When Spain enacted a series of policies that equalised parental leave at 16 weeks for each parent in 2021, paternal uptake rose from 46% to over 75%. UK analysis estimates that extending paternity leave to six weeks at 90% of earnings could generate a net economic benefit of around £2.7 billion a year. The gains stem from mothers working more. Care-centred policy and economic growth are mutually reinforcing goals.Meaningful reform requires pay that is liveable; individual, non-transferable entitlements for both parents; and eligibility rules that include self-employed, precariously employed, and student parents. Without these changes, the system risks producing the same outcomes. The economic burden of care will remain disproportionately placed on mothers, fathers will be unable to afford more, and too many families will be excluded altogether.Anna Tarrant receives funding from UKRI.