Equality in Parental leave: smashing gender and parental stereotypes
A woman’s earnings increase by 6.7% for every month of paternity leave taken by her husband, indicating that progressive parental leave can have a significant impact in encouraging equality.
The issue of achieving equality in parental leave and pay is an intractable issue facing the workforces of many developing and developed nations. Yet, many Scandinavian countries appear to be championing equality in parental leave and gender equality through sound policies, paving the way for more countries to follow suit in this regard. For example, in Sweden parents are entitled to share 480 days of parental leave per child, in Denmark parents receive 52 weeks of parental leave, and in Norway parents are entitled up to 49 weeks at 100% coverage or up to 59 weeks of leave at 80% coverage.
In addition to progressive parental leave policies in terms of the duration of leave entitlements, there appears to be greater awareness and willingness in taking up parental leave in the above mentioned Scandinavian countries. This is mainly driven by policies such as the “daddy quota” which is a period of leave exclusively reserved for fathers. This has encouraged nine out of ten fathers to now take leave in Sweden, whilst Norway has also witnessed similar success in encouraging both partners to take up leave entitlements. The recognition of the need to support new fathers as is done with new mothers is further evidenced by countries such as South Korea and Japan as evidenced from the image below.
However, many other developed nations still lag behind progressive pay and leave entitlements. In Australia, Parental Leave Pay provides eligible working parents with up to 18 weeks of pay at the rate of the national minimum wage. However, as at 2021, only women had taken 88% of parental leave whilst 9% of Australian businesses still offered parental leave primarily to women only. Moreover, in Australia, only one in twenty fathers take primary parental leave, a figure starkly lower than global standards. Could this be attributed to workforce culture or traditional gender and parental roles? Either way, statistics reveal that much remains to be done in terms of achieving equality in parental leave and thereby closing the gender pay gap.
The Global Impact Initiative’s Gender Equality fund is the world’s first, actively managed impact fund for Women and Girls. Gender equality is long overdue, and this investment solution enables investors to utilise investment capital to deliver empowerment for women in the workforce and better outcomes for girls' health, education, nutrition and social and economic empowerment. The fund has partnered with Robeco, Grameen Australia, Malala Fund, UN Women Australia, UNICEF Australia and World Vision to accelerate social impact for women and girls.
This innovative, impactful fund is available as an Australian Fund and a Dublin-based UCITs and the minimum investment is only $5,000. Please contact us via our website for more information should you be interested in investing in gender equality and closing the gender gap!
