It’s Mat Leave Monday! This one is for the dads – today I’m talking about paternity leave, both in Canada and beyond our borders.
Canadian maternity leave is reserved for birth mothers and lasts 15 weeks. Parental leave, however, can be shared in whole or part between parents and lasts for 35 weeks. (There is also a 2 week waiting period which is served before benefits are paid out to the first parent). So while Canadian fathers don’t receive any dedicated paternity leave, they are eligible to take all or part of the parental leave. This leave can be taken anytime within the first year of the baby’s birth or adoption, and both parents can be on leave concurrently. The biggest downside is that for every week that a dad claims benefits their partner’s leave is shortened accordingly.
The situation is somewhat different in the province of Quebec, which has its own plan for new parents. Under the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) new fathers are eligible for 3-5 weeks of paid paternity leave. This is in addition to being eligible to share parental benefits with their partners.
How many Canadian men take paternity leave? Across Canada it’s held steady at 11%. Quebec is the one exception, where it increased from 32% in 2005 to 56% in 2006 (the same year QPIP was introduced). And dads who took leave averaged 17 weeks in 2006, up from 11 weeks in 2005. So while Canadian dads are taking advantage of parental benefits for longer periods, outside of Quebec they’re still in the minority. My own experience confirms this – most of the new dads I know cobble together a leave using vacation or flex time, very few take official leaves.
Why don’t more dads take leaves? Money and social conventions seem to be two very big factors. This video from DadLabs talks about the benefits of paternity leave, as well as some of the reasons dads might not take advantage of it:
We already know that Canada offers very generous maternity and parental benefits. So what about other countries? As the dads in the video mentioned, American fathers who qualify are eligible to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act. South African fathers can claim three days of family responsibility leave. New fathers in the UK receive 1-2 weeks of paid leave. Australian fathers may share up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave with their partners. And in New Zealand new dads are eligible for 2 weeks of unpaid paternity leave, and may also share all or part of a 52-week parental leave with their partners. Irish fathers are not eligible for any sort of paternity leave.
My own husband hasn’t taken a dedicated paternity leave. Because he was self-employed when both kids were born he was not eligible for government-sponsored benefits. But now that he’s working full-time he says he would take a leave if he could. When he was working freelance he could take a Tuesday afternoon off to go on an outing or hang out with the kids. With the change in his working situation, though, he can’t and so he’s spending less time with Jacob than he did with Hannah when she was a baby. Based on what I’ve read, he’s not alone.
We know that children benefit from care provided by both of their parents. I hope that attitudes shift and policies change and paternity leave becomes more widely available. And I also hope that the leave that is available becomes more widely used. I think that everyone wins when dads are able to spend lots of time caring for their babies (and the haggard women who produced them) in the early days. As important as maternity benefits are, let’s not forget that dads matter, too.
my husband was called back early from his paternity leave. he wanted to tae all of it each time, but the 15 days he’s given never seem to fall at a time he can take. but it was good he had it b/c lilah got pneumonia at 2 months and he HAD to take it then
My husband had just started a new job and couldn’t take his full 5 weeks (we are from Quebec). What he did was take 1 week when my son was born, took another two weeks in January and will take the final two weeks in the summer, since you can split the paternity leave within 12 months of the child’s birth.
I can tell you though that it’s still not really favored by employers. I once overheard my district manager talk to someone about a manager who was taking 5 weeks paternity. This district manager was almost making fun of the guy. “Men taking Paternity…” He said this with a voice like it was abuse.
I hope times change because I think that Paternity is very important for bonding and for helping out the mother during the first very tiresome couple of weeks. I know that his week home really helped me out when Tyler was born.
Yay for me and my husband being self-employed and taking advantage of the wonderful benefits offered by the beautiful province of Quebec!
My husband took more leave than I did for baby 1, and almost as much for baby 2. Of course, we’re in the US, so it’s not hard to beat the amount of maternity leave.
I was fortunate to have my husband take a month off with our first child and almost 3 months with our second child. He did feel the same as mentioned above. His employer thought it weird that he wanted sooo much time off when our second child was born.
I believe children need to bond with both parents, and both parents should have the oppourtunity to take off. It is unfortunate that all countries do not feel the same.
It is of note though that the moneys used to pay for paternal leave does not come from EI benefits. It comes from childcare dollars. These dollars are set aside for childcare issues. Some disagree with this fact but personally, anyway we can benefit a child by having both his/her parents around to bond with, I am all for.
The more money put into children at an earlier age, the better society is for it down the road.
(That coming from an owner of 2 childcare centres where childcare dollars are always needed…but that’s a whole nother story!!!)
Keep up the great posts Amber! I really enjoy my time visiting your blog!
I planned on taking parental leave when our first daughter was born (we had salary top-up), but I ended up switching jobs so it never happened. I did take a few weeks vacation though.