Gender Neutral Parental Leave: Why India must Embrace this Forward Looking Policy
As we have recently celebrated Father’s Day, it is pertinent that we also recognise the importance of the father-child relationship, particularly in the early part of the child’s life. Parents – both mother and father – play a critical role in the nurturing and development of a child. It is necessary that both get to spend time and bond with the child. While this sounds obvious, working conditions often preclude any caregivers, apart from the mother, from receiving leave to care for a new born child. Hence, this Father’s Day presents a good opportunity to talk about gender-neutral parental leave, which would allow both parents to spend time with their children.
Gender neutral parental leave recognises the key tenet of parenting – that raising a child is a family responsibility, not just the mother’s. There is no debate that the child has a special bond with her mother and nobody can take over the mother’s role. However, it is equally true that taking care of the child is not solely the mother’s responsibility. The dynamics of a family unit involve the husband-wife and parent-child relationships. Thus, the father of a new born child has a critical role to play at home – both as a primary caregiver to the baby and as the husband of the recovering mother. Indeed, for the first few months, the mother needs to focus on her own recovery even as she tends to her child’s needs. The post partum period provides an opportunity for the family unit to bond together – allowing the mother to heal in the company of her husband and child, the father to spend time with the new born and the child to bond with both its parents. It is no surprise that a survey has shown that parenting together in the first months of a child’s life leads to better family dynamics.
Traditionally, in India new mothers have travelled to their parents’ home to receive care post-delivery. However, with a rising trend of nuclear families and increased mobility of working couples, it is unfair to expect grandparents to act as secondary caregivers. If the grandparents live in another city and cannot travel, this could also lead to the baby to be separated from the father during the postpartum period. This separation could also impact the father-child bond. It is prudent to recognise this gap in parenting requirements, and allow fathers time to contribute to taking care of the family.
Finally, in addition to home, having gender neutral parental leave will have a positive impact on workplaces. Currently, India allows 26-week maternity leave under the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017. A recent Ken article discussed how this necessary entitlement increases hiring costs for women employees, without incentivising employers, leading to furtherance of the gender gap. Whilst it is essential to discuss how payment for parental leaves are structured, any leave that is stipulated to only one gender will put that gender at a professional disadvantage. A gender neutral leave policy however, does away with this disadvantage and in the long-term would aid in increasing women participation in the labour force. Flexible paternal leave may also allow mothers to return to work easier, particularly if the partner can then stay-at-home to take care of the child.
The longstanding question then – who should pay for parental leave? Various economic models suggest that government should cover the expenses, or insurance scheme paid at the institution or government level. India currently relies on the employer to cover maternity – this has two important consequences. There policy is available to a small percentage of women whose employers put them into formal contracts and its extension to cover paternal leave will likely be met with understandable resistance. Various large companies such as Accenture, Meesho, Flipkart, Twitter are offering longer paternity leaves, while central government employees get the standard 15 days leave. The larger private companies are clearly working out a forward looking policy, understanding the need for new fathers to avail time off with their family. The government and private sector can together work out a tenable solution so that reasonable gender neutral leave can become a reality, without unnecessarily burdening the private sector with its costs.
The need for maternity leave seems apparent – a new mother has to recover from the arduous strain of pregnancy and labour while taking care of a new born dependent on her for sustenance. However, even maternity leave is a privilege afforded to a small percentage of mothers engaged in formal employment. Any serious discussion on gender neutral leave discussion has to include schemes for the 92.4% of the labour force in engaged in informal employment and unorganised sectors to also avail leave. This is particularly true of biological mothers in physical labour, who need rest to be able to tend to their little ones.
Finally, gender neutral leave signals the empathy of a developing economy – we recognise that parenting is not dependent on the gender of the parent. A parent may belong to any gender and may be biological or adoptive. It is the care and time they provide that underlines the bond they share with the child. It is therefore in the interest of our future generations that India takes this conversation seriously.
