Motherhood around the world: Parental leave
This is part two in a four-part series on motherhood across different regions of the world. In this series, I’ve interviewed six newsletter subscribers who were raised in the U.S. but now live in various countries abroad. The first article explored pregnancy and childbirth experiences, while today’s piece delves into the topic of parental leave.
Parental Leave
Isabella, market researcher, Singapore: The Singaporean government, by law, requires companies to provide 16 weeks of government-subsidized maternity leave, but it’s predicated on the child being a Singapore citizen and the mother providing proof that she is married to the child’s father. For non-citizens, the government only requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave. So I have been in companies where the maternity leave for foreigners was 12 weeks, but for Singaporeans it was 16 weeks. Luckily, the company that I worked for standardized their birth benefits, so it was 16 weeks for both Singaporeans as well as foreigners.
And for paternity leave, fathers (whose child is a registered Singapore citizen) are now allowed to take four weeks of government-funded paternity leave. The government caps the rate of compensation at $2500 per week.
A new law just passed—that will be implemented in 2026—giving parents an additional 10 weeks of shared parental leave, bringing it to a total of 30 weeks of parental leave to be split between a couple.
Evelyn, geologist, Denmark: I was entitled to full pay for:
Up to six weeks of paid pregnancy leave, which meant my paid leave started six weeks before my expected due date.
Fourteen weeks of paid maternity/parent leave after the birth of my child
If my child and I had been hospitalized during the first 46 weeks of the child's life, we could extend maternity leave corresponding to the period of hospitalization, up to three months
My partner was entitled to full pay for:
Two weeks of paternity/co-mother leave, which could be taken any time within the first 14 weeks of a child's birth (this does not include the actual birth date of the child)
Together we were entitled to:
32 weeks of paid parental leave at full pay, which we could divide between us. We could also extend our leave up to 46 weeks, and they would distribute those 32 weeks of salary across the full extent of our leave period. We could also defer 8-13 weeks of our parent leave, to be taken any time before our child's 9th birthday.
Finally, as we both had 6 weeks of vacation (which you continue to accrue while on parental leave), one of us was able to be home with our daughter for her first 14+32+6 = 52 weeks of life!
Being American, I was unable to imagine being away from my work for a full year or even for a full half year. We decided that instead of having one parent take a chunk and then the other parent take a chunk—which is what most people do—we would instead split our time so that after she was 18 weeks old, I worked two days a week and my husband worked three. And of course, I learned that trying to get work done two days a week was pretty ineffective, but it was allowed!
Also, because parental leave is fully tax funded, companies are able to use the amount they would normally put towards your salary to hire a short-term replacement.
Kate, hospital administration, Canada: This is one of the things I find so fascinating about Canada because I think the length of the leave has some very significant consequences—some good, some bad. Typically, women take 12 months of parental leave here, but they're eligible to take as many as 18 months, and some do take that more extended leave. I was offered a new job opportunity while on my first parental leave and I went back at eight months, which was out of the ordinary.
In terms of pay, the government covers 40 hours a week of minimum wage, which I think it's like $17 an hour right now. Obviously for many people, that's going to be a material pay cut, but it is something, and you can get that every week for 12 months or you can spread that out over 18. What many employers do as a best practice is top you up to your full salary for a period of time—usually four months. But your job is protected the entire time and your eligibility and accrual around stock options or bonus tends to stay true as if you were there so that you're not penalized for that.
Because of these extended leaves, companies actually backfill the roles when women are away as opposed to the way that people bubble gum it together during the 2-4 months women are out in the States. So because companies hire these limited-contract workers, people are less fearful of taking the leave because truly the work is being covered.
Also, because women take longer leave, it is extremely rare for them to still be breastfeeding when they come back to work. So this whole idea of coming back and being sleep deprived and trying to build pumping into your meeting schedule just doesn't happen here. I don't even know if we have a pumping room and I work for a very progressive, great organization—literally just no one comes back and is pumping.
The final thing I would say is while [this system] is very supportive of women's careers, the reality is you have a period of 12 months where the mom is the primary caregiver at home, and that creates a certain division of responsibilities. So in my observation, you really have to actively renegotiate with your partner at the end of leave. Because, if you're not careful, I think it can actually create some more traditional and perhaps imbalanced responsibility divisions because there's been a full year where mom was at home.
Daphne, marketing and design consultant, England: In the UK, companies are required to hold your job for you for up to a year after you give birth. So, when my son was born, my company gave me four months of fully paid leave and then the rest of the year I was given what they call “statutory”. Statutory is a government-funded salary of 165 GBP per week, so it hardly pays for anything. However, you do still accrue holiday, so you still recruit your vacation times and you accrue your bank holidays.
The country does have a shared parental leave policy. So because I returned to work after nine months, three of my 12 months were available to my husband to take off of his job. However putting it into action it is quite a complex thing and required my HR department to talk to my husband’s HR department.
For most professionals in the UK, they have keeping in touch days during maternity leave, where you get paid to come into the office and keep in touch. You have a chat, have a chat with your line manager. I went to company meetings, I went to some marketing business development events where they invited clients in and they had us there with some speakers and stuff. And so it was a bit of a meet and greet mingle thing and they're really great ways for you to take your brain off ice, remind yourself you know what you're doing, have a chat, get all the gossip, get away from your kid for a day, and get paid! But it is also very legally focused. Your boss can’t ask you when you’re coming back.
Paternity leave and the role of dads
Kate, hospital administration, Canada: Anecdotally, I am definitely seeing men taking a couple months of paternity leave, often doing it later on. Mom will go back at work and then dad takes a couple months, and also the baby's a bit older and maybe again no longer being breastfed.
Denise, self-employed editor and author, the Netherlands: Fathers take paternity leave. In the past 10 years or so, it's becoming more normalized to do that. And there's less judgment around doing so. There's also this thing called “papadag”, or papa day. So fathers, will work four days a week so that they can spend time with their child on their “off” day.
Evelyn, geologist, Denmark: We were ex-pats, so certainly our view is from a bit of an outsider lens. But my strong impression is that many marriages were egalitarian relationships. When I think of the families with whom we were close friends, labor always seemed to be evenly divided.
I think a big part of all of that stems from that early parental leave where the dad has three months where they're in charge, they're in charge of the household, so they learn what that workload is and they learn that they can do it. And critically the mom learns that they can do it. And so it doesn't have to be a burden that a mother is carrying alone or the woman in the house is carrying alone. And I think that that helps a lot. Both kind of social acceptance that dads are expected to pitch in and social acceptance that moms are allowed to let go.
Natalie, graphic designer, Sweden: A lot of the time when I am at the playground I'm talking to the dads and not the moms. I think maybe the moms are the “inside parent” and the dad is the “outside parent”. Also, although everyone—both moms and dads—are expected to take their leave time, you do still see dads shorting the parental leave a little bit.
