Keyfinding - Family Responsibilities - 2020

4. FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES

A. PARENTAL LEAVE

Nearly 45% (52) countries provide for parental leave. Only Chile (Americas) and Singapore (Asia) require a parental leave of less than 4 months. 43 countries, of which 28 are in Europe and eight in Asia, require a parental leave of more than 4 months. 63 countries have no provision on parental leave, the majority of which are in Africa (31 of 34), the Americas (12 of 15) and Asia (20 of 30). 

B. PATERNITY LEAVE

Less than 40% (43) countries require a paternity leave of 7 calendar days or more. Of these, four countries, Azerbaijan, Belarus, New Zealand and Ukraine, provide for unpaid paternity leave of 14 calendar days. However, Europe still leads in the total number of days for leave provided to the father, making over 60% of countries providing over 7 days of leave.  Nearly one third of the countries provide for less than 7 days of paternity leave, of which the majority are in Africa.

C. FLEXIBLE WORK ARRANGEMENTS

Nearly 30% (33) of the countries require flexible work arrangements for workers, especially working parents. 23 of these 33 countries are from Europe, six in Asia, two in Africa (Angola and Tunisia), and one each in the Americas (Chile) and Oceania (Australia) each.

D. PAID NURSING BREAKS

Other than Israel, which requires nursing breaks for less than 6 months of child’s age (4 months), 96 countries require paid nursing breaks until a child is at least 6 months old. Of these 96, 25 countries require nursing breaks until a child is over 12 months. 18 countries do not require employers to provide nursing breaks to women workers. In Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland and the UK, the length of maternity leave and parental leave is long enough to cover the requisite nursing period involving paid breaks for at least six months for mothers.