View the report here.

Our Global Family Leave and Pay Snapshot provides the statutory Maternity, Paternity, Adoption and Shared Leave and pay, in more than 85 countries around the world.

Created with contributions from our international team, covering Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, the Middle East, North America, the Caribbean, and South and Central America, each country chart provides a snapshot of leave and pay available when welcoming a child into the family by birth or adoption.  View the report here.

Some of the key insights from the report include:  

• Type of leave offered
  • The concept of sharing leave between parents is the least common type of leave.
  • Adoption leave entitlements vary greatly between countries. This is an important type of leave for many families, particularly same sex parents. Even where adoption leave is offered, there may still be qualifying conditions in some parts of the world limiting access to it by gender.

• Length of leave 
  • This ranges from none to more than a year in many cases, and some countries may surprise you.
  • There is still a pattern of little or no paternity leave in many countries, while most offer some form of maternity leave which varies greatly in length.

•  Rate of pay  

The rate of pay ranges from nil pay to full pay. For leave entitlements to translate into meaningful take-up, it helps for it to be paid at more than 50%. In some instances, where low rates of pay are present, employers step in to enhance the statutory pay, which can become the market norm.

 Countries offering generous entitlements include:

• Slovakia, Finland, Spain, Norway and the Netherlands provide the longest paternity leave paid at more than 50%.
• Poland, Slovakia and Chile provide the longest maternity leave paid at more than 50%.
• Japan, Finland, Poland, Romania and Germany provide the longest adoption leave paid at more than 50%.

•  Comparisons within countries

In addition to making comparisons between countries, comparisons within countries can provide some insight into the local social norms and gender expectations on raising families.  For example:

• The Spanish leave system builds in gender balance: when a baby is born, both parents get the same right to four months of exclusive leave paid at more than 50%.
• In contrast, while the UK's shared parental leave regime allows parents to split time off equally if they choose, the default position is that maternity leave lasts for 52 weeks, with paternity leave lasting only 2 weeks.

In many other countries, where there is no leave sharing available, a difference between maternity and paternity leave/pay is more fixed, and can be either a reflection, a driver, or both, in respect of expected gender-based family roles.

Policies

Global organisations often want to offer consistent employee benefits worldwide. To do this, the first step requires an understanding of the minimum legal requirements that apply. The Dentons Global Employment team works with clients to design bespoke policies, which tie in with their strategic aims, help attract and retain talent, and reflect legal requirements for both family leave and pay, and market trends in every location in which they operate.

For more information please reach out to the key contacts provided on this page or to your local contacts for Employment and Labor practice listed here.