Why Equal Parental Leaves Matters

I love to work, but I also love to spend time with my growing family. Wanting to combine a rewarding career with a healthy family life is not something unique for me - for many the ability to have both is important. Having high ambitions in your worklife while being a present mother, father, partner or family member is not always easy though - we often find ourselves compromising in both directions. As employers, I believe we play a critical role in enabling our crew to juggle their work with family responsibilities in a balanced manner. Flexibility in working hours, empathy for unexpected home situations and understanding the needs for leaves and un-interrupted family time are a few of the ways we can help. Another area where we have the possibility to impact our team members' family life, is through our parental leave policies. And there, in Ascentic we came to realize we can do more.

A Tale that Starts in the Land of Parental Leave - Sweden

Let's start with some context on where this is coming from. I'm from Sweden, a place where we have, as far as I know, the most generous by law statutory parental leave policies in the world. The parents of the child together has about 16 months of paid parental leave that they are allowed to take. Yes, paid parental leave, where the state is providing a parental allowance so the employer of the parent does not have to bear the costs (and yes, this is enabled by high taxes and corporate fees, so of course something we all pitch into in the end). With this generous structure, parents - both mothers and fathers - are able to spend a lot of time with their newborns, with a limited impact on their economic situation and worth in the job market.

Looking at the Current Situation in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, mothers have a statutory right to 84 work days - about 4 months - of paid maternity leave. For fathers in the private sector, there is none. No, actually not even one day that you are required as an organisation to give to fathers after childbirth. Most of the organisations do offer a couple of days, but it's not a legal obligation.

Apart from the difference in how many days you are eligible for, the parental leave differs in Sweden and Sri Lanka in who's paying for this leave - where in Sweden it's the state, and in Sri Lanka it is the employer of the parent. Thus, in Sri Lanka the cost of a maternity or paternity leave is fully taken by the employer, and puts a limit on how generous your leave policies can be.

In Ascentic, we have from the start had 5 days of paid paternity leave for fathers. This is pretty standard in the Sri Lankan tech industry, however we have always felt uneasy about how our maternity and paternity (or partner) leave policies differ.

Why?

Well one of the reasons, is how it impacts the gender balance in the job market. In the IT industry, we are working hard to increase the ratio of females working, and maybe most importantly remaining, in the field. Having a child today impacts the mother and her career significantly more than the father. With the parental leave being available mainly for the mother, it's today the mother who is taking the bigger chunk of the responsibility of the newborn, is more likely to stay at home, unpaid, a bit longer also after the parental leave is completed (for example if no affordable and suitable childcare options are available), and is more likely to fall behind career-wise. The economic impact from unequal parental leaves, both in the short and long term, is still today a big blocker to economic freedom for many females. A more equal paternity leave allows mothers to return to work with the comfort of the child being at home with the other parent, and the impact on the careers of the fathers and mothers to be more equal.

We Can't Expect a Problem to Dissolve Without Investing in the Solution

For us at Ascentic , we came to a point where we were not able to stand behind having unequal parental leave policies. In order to improve the situation for both parents wanting to combine work and family life, we have to make an investment.

So what did we do? Simply increased the paid paternity (or partner) leave to the same amount as maternity leave - 84 days. An equal industry starts with equal terms, and this is our small, but for us really important, step in contributing to a more equal and healthy job market of the future.

What do you think is needed to create a more equal industry of tomorrow?