Parental leave, one word for opposite schemes
Comparing leave duration across countries produces rankings that circulate widely. They conflate entitlements whose pay, transferability and take-up have nothing in common.
Three schemes not to confuse
Maternity leave is tied to childbirth and covered by health insurance in most countries. Paternity or second-parent leave is short and generally well paid. Parental leave is longer, open to both parents, and its pay ranges from full salary to a low flat-rate allowance.
International rankings often add these three entitlements together, which puts at the top countries where long leave is very poorly paid and therefore little used beyond a few months.
The role of pay
Comparative work shows that take-up depends closely on the income replacement rate. A long but poorly compensated entitlement is used mainly by the parent with the lower income, most often the mother.
That mechanism is cited to explain how formally neutral entitlements produce strongly gendered use, without any rule prescribing it.
Non-transferable quotas
Iceland, Norway and Sweden introduced from the 1990s periods reserved for each parent, lost if not taken. Evaluations find a clear and durable rise in paternal take-up after those quotas were introduced.
These periods are often called daddy months, a misleading name since the rule applies to each of the two parents. Sweden introduced a first reserved month in 1995, later extended to two and then three months.
The 2019 European directive on work-life balance generalised a similar principle, requiring member states to provide two non-transferable months and a minimum paternity leave.
What evaluations find, and do not
The effects of quotas on take-up are among the best established in this field, because the reforms provide sharp breaks that can be exploited statistically.
Effects on the durable sharing of domestic tasks and on careers are more uncertain: results vary by country, period and method, and several studies find weak or null effects after a few years.
The French case
France combines maternity leave comparable to its neighbours, second-parent leave extended in 2021, and a shared child-rearing benefit whose flat rate is low relative to wages.
Second-parent leave rose in 2021 from eleven to twenty-five calendar days, part of which is compulsory. That compulsory share is an exception in a system where the other entitlements are left to parents' choice, and it was debated for that reason.
Assessments published since the 2015 reform, which introduced a share reserved for the second parent, report a fall in total take-up without any notable rise in male take-up, a result that feeds opposing readings.
Key points
Duration rankings add up entitlements whose pay and use are not comparable.
Take-up follows the income replacement rate, which differentiates use by sex.
Non-transferable quotas clearly raise paternal take-up; their effects on careers remain disputed.
This article describes documented mechanisms and disagreements. It recommends no position, no party and no vote, and commits to no reading other than that of the work it cites.
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