Statutory maternity pay is becoming a retention problem UK employers cannot delegate to government policy alone. A new survey from advocacy group Pregnant Then Screwed, run in partnership with Women in Data and covering 5,245 women, finds that 82 percent of new mothers feel forced to return to work earlier than they want because they cannot afford to live on statutory maternity pay. The “State of the Nation 2026” survey found that of the mothers who cut leave short, three-quarters experienced workplace discrimination when they returned, and 36 percent quit their job as a result.
The pay-driven early return is not distributed evenly. Single parents, lower-income parents, disabled parents, and parents of disabled children were the most likely to return early, the most likely to leave the workforce altogether, and the most likely to face discrimination once back. More than half of parents with a disabled child, 57 percent, left their job entirely after experiencing discrimination, and single parents and disabled parents each showed a 46 percent exit rate tied to discrimination on return.
For HR and benefits leaders, this is a system design failure, not just a policy gap. Employers already know their benefits technology has a data-visibility gap around rising healthcare costs; this survey shows the same blind spot extends to parental leave. If payroll and benefits platforms only model the statutory minimum, they miss the point at which employees are pushed out the door, along with the discrimination risk that follows them back into the workplace. Employers that supplement statutory maternity pay, or that flag return-to-work discrimination through structured manager check-ins rather than informal supervision, are the ones positioned to keep experienced staff instead of financing their replacement search.
Source: Pregnant Then Screwed
