Parental leave as a way to foster gender equality
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text
adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of
the Assembly, on 31 May 2013 (see Doc. 13207, report of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination,
rapporteur: Mr Rigoni; and Doc.
13208, opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health
and Sustainable Development, rapporteur: Ms Ohlsson).
1. Parental leave, which is leave
granted to parents, irrespective of their gender, for the care of
a child, represents one of the pillars of policies for the reconciliation
of professional and private life, as well as a tool to foster gender
equality within families, at work and in society at large. It also
responds to the need increasingly expressed by men to have more
time to take care of newborn, young or newly adopted children, corresponding to
a trend already visible in society, moving towards overcoming the
traditional view of women as caregivers and men exclusively as breadwinners.
2. The Parliamentary Assembly welcomes the introduction in recent
years of some form of parental leave in almost all Council of Europe
member States. However, the Assembly notes, on the one hand, the
great disparity between different systems and, on the other hand,
the limited use of parental leave in practice. It therefore proposes
measures aimed at reviewing the current systems by introducing elements
to promote the take-up of parental leave by fathers and at co-ordinating
parental leave with other policies.
3. In the light of these considerations, and recalling its
Resolution 1921 (2013) on
gender equality, reconciliation of private and working life and
co-responsibility, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member States
to:
3.1 introduce parental leave
schemes enabling parents, irrespective of their sex, to look after
their children on an equal footing. These systems should satisfy
the following criteria:
3.1.1 they should reserve a part
of the leave for fathers, which cannot be transferred to the other
parent and is lost if it is not used, unless there are exceptional
circumstances, and provide a system of bonuses for cases where both
parents take parental leave, as a way of creating an incentive for
the take-up of parental leave by fathers;
3.1.2 they should be flexible, with the possibility for parents
to take the leave in one block or to break it up and to combine
it with full-time or part-time work;
3.1.3 they should be available to all workers irrespective of
their type of contract (including those on fixed-term, part-time
or temporary work contracts) and of employers (whether public or private
and irrespective of the size of the entity);
3.2 mobilise sufficient resources to support the implementation
of parental leave schemes through financial incentives, information
and awareness-raising campaigns aimed at the general public and promotional
measures encouraging men in particular to use their leave entitlement;
3.3 incorporate parental leave in a framework of policies,
in particular adequate early childhood education and care policies,
allowing both parents to reconcile private and working life according
to flexible arrangements corresponding to their specific wishes
and requirements.
4. In the long run, the Assembly encourages Council of Europe
member States to replace the various types of leave currently available
(maternity, paternity, parental, childcare leave) with a single
parental leave, available to both parents and to be shared equally.
5. Convinced that social partners – employers’ and workers’ organisations
– have an important role to play in the implementation of parental
leave schemes, the Assembly encourages them to overcome obstacles
in order to create a workplace culture that facilitates the take-up
of parental leave, especially among male workers, and the reintegration
of both women and men into the labour market by offering them flexible employment
and childcare schemes once parental leave has ended.
6. The Assembly calls in particular on employers and their organisations
to guarantee that parents can enjoy their entitlement to parental
leave irrespective of their gender, without any negative consequences
for their career prospects and professional development.
