To help employees balance work and caring for family or relatives, many countries are introducing new forms of leave. These may focus on improving rights for parents of young children, although reforms increasingly recognise wider caring responsibilities.
Historically, family leave rights focussed on time off for mothers. More recently, governments prioritised giving fathers/second parents, including adoptive parents, time off around the time of a child’s birth or adoption. Japan introduced four weeks’ paternity leave for the first time in 2022. Although fathers were already entitled to childcare leave, it was rare for them to take it. The government hopes that by 2030, 85 percent of fathers will take paternity leave.
Singapore increased paid paternity leave from two to four weeks for eligible birth and adoptive fathers in January 2024. France doubled it to 28 days relatively recently. It’s increasingly common for French employers to top up the social security allowance employees receive while on leave, so fathers don’t lose pay.
Hungary doubled paternity leave for birth or adoptive parents to 10 days from the start of 2023. Employees get full pay during the first week of leave and 40 percent for the second. Poland introduced a new non-transferable nine-week parental leave entitlement for each parent in 2023.
The UK government doesn’t plan to increase the existing two-week paternity leave entitlement for fathers/second parents. It will make leave more flexible from April by allowing parents to take it as two separate weeks and use it within one year of birth or adoption. From April 2025, parents will also be entitled to neonatal leave if a baby has to spend at least seven days in hospital within 28 days of birth.
Pregnant employees and parents who have recently returned to work after maternity, adoption or shared parental leave will get greater redundancy protection from April 2024. Employers can select employees for redundancy as long as this is not linked to the pregnancy or family-related leave. In future, employers will have to offer these employees available suitable alternative employment before they can be fairly dismissed.
After matching maternity and paternity leave entitlements in 2021, Spain introduced more family-friendly rights in 2023. All parents can take eight weeks’ parental leave before a child is eight, which cannot be transferred to the other parent. Leave can be continuous or discontinuous and on a full-time or part-time basis. It will be paid from August 2024.
Employees can take up to five days’ paid leave to care for a relative in cases of illness or serious accident. Four days’ paid leave is available to deal with urgent family situations relating to illness or accident. Dismissals for taking leave are not valid.
Poland has introduced new rights to leave for carers. Employees can take two days’ emergency/force majeure leave at half pay to deal with urgent family matters caused by illness or accident. Up to five days’ unpaid leave is available to provide support for a seriously ill family member.
Hungary has also introduced five days’ carer’s leave for ill family members, which can be taken in two installments.
From April 2024 employees in the United Kingdom will be able to take up to five days’ unpaid leave each year. This is to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need related to disability, illness or old age. Employees can already take unpaid leave to deal with an urgent family situation. This doesn’t cover planned time off, to take someone to a medical appointment, for example. Employees will be able to take carer’s leave flexibly, in periods of a day or half day.
In contrast to countries extending rights to paid leave, Germany is cutting entitlements for high earners, largely for budgetary reasons. From April 2024, the threshold income at which parents are eligible for state-funded parental allowance during parental leave will decrease from €300,000, first to €200,000, then to €175,000 in 2025. There’s speculation this may hinder equality by encouraging women to leave the workforce permanently to care for children. Employers may also find themselves under pressure to provide paid parental leave for higher earning employees.
Japan: Employment law update - Amendment of the Childcare and Family Care Leave Act