How To Make Parental Leave in India Gender-Neutral

My last post was about how I reconciled motherhood with my feminism. I had described the issues I faced as a pregnant employee and as a new mother. One of my male friends shared a different point of view with me after reading the post. In his opinion, men have it worse than women in one way. He explained that most women get to experience the joy of parenthood for at least the duration of paid maternity leave. But there is an absence of parental leave policies in India for fathers. Men, he revealed, are still discouraged at workplaces from availing parental leave. The question asked is ‘why do men need childcare leave’?

The inequality in parental leave benefits in India

This mindset prevalent in society has certainly led to a huge gender gap in the law relating to parental leave.

Women in almost the entire organized work sector now get at least 26 weeks of parental leave under Indian law. This is the position after an amendment in the law in 2016. The amendment enhanced the quantum from 12 weeks, which was the provision earlier.

At the time the amendment was rolled out, a question had arisen if similar provisions can be made for fathers. The Union Minister for Women and Child Development at the time was Ms. Maneka Gandhi. She answered the question in the negative. ‘Men in India would use this leave as a holiday’, she said, ‘and won’t contribute to childcare’. 

Till date, the law does not provide mandatory parental leave for men working in the private sector in India. The Paternity Benefit Bill of 2017 (the PL Bill) proposing mandatory leave for all sectors is yet to become law. In any case, the PL Bill proposes only 15 days of leave, extendable up to 3 months.

father on parental leave holding baby at home
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

Impact of the gender-gap in parental leave in India

Ms. Gandhi’s statement in 2016 had led to angry reactions from many people. Men criticized her for being a male-hater. Women’s groups said that her statement as well as the increase in maternity leave would only lead to more discrimination against women. Men would continue to not share in childcare duties. Also, women will continue to lag behind their male career counterparts.

The enhancement of maternity benefit in 2016 had not found immediate favour with employers either. It was seen as being too onerous on industry. Employers actually appeared to stop or reduce hiring women of childbearing age. The Government had to intervene. It promised to reimburse employers for part of the cost of the maternity benefits provided.

When researching this issue, I recalled the initial years I spent caring for my daughter. I remembered my constant lament about my husband’s lack of availability. Even when I had taken a break from work to care for my daughter, I needed him to give me a break at times from the all-consuming task that childcare turned out to be. But he was struggling hard to balance professional demands with personal life. I don’t remember the period being easy for any of us. In fact, I remember both of us resenting each other for what we each missed out on. I now also saw where my friend came from.

My Suggestions For Achieving Equality In Parental Leave In India

I understand that an enhancement in paternity leave benefit is fraught with challenges. The financial constraints of employers and the Government are to be considered. But the welfare of the child and the family, and gender equality are important objectives too.

Here, I make a few suggestions for balancing all these competing interests. But first, an alert: The discussion from here on might get a tad too technical for some of the readers. Let’s bear with it.

A Gender-Neutral Fund

To state fairly, I have taken a leaf from the PL Bill. The PL Bill proposes the creation of a Paternity Benefit Scheme Fund. The employer, male employee, and the Central Government must contribute amounts towards this fund. The fund is supposed to be used to meet the costs related to paternity benefits. 

I take a step further and propose that such a fund be created under a new gender-neutral parental leave benefit legislation. Women employees should also make contributions to the fund. This would only help the cause of gender parity. It might prevent discrimination against women in hiring or promotions.

This parental leave fund can function like the currently existing Employee Provident Fund. Each employee would accumulate benefits in a separate account. Employees can avail parental leave in proportion to the funds accumulated in their accounts. The proportion can be based on their last drawn wages. This spreads the financial burden across all agencies, including the employees. 

Opting Out of the Scheme

Employees may opt out of the parental leave benefit scheme. Such employees will not be required to make any contributions. In this way, co-workers who do not plan to have children or any more of them would not end up resenting the employees availing the benefit.

But any employee opting out must provide evidence of his/her spouse having opted out of the scheme too. Or, they should provide a declaration that the spouse is non-working. If a spouse joins the workforce later, and/or wants to opt in the scheme, both spouses must opt in together. These conditions can ensure that no one parent ends up bearing all the burden of childcare. I do understand that couples should be free to make their own division of childcare responsibilities. But there is a huge gender disparity in childcare duties in India as of now. To bridge the gap, this leave should initially be mandatory for both parents. 

Restricted Encashment

An employee may only withdraw the funds from his/her account in the event of loss of custody rights, or a divorce or spouse’s death while being childless. In the case of the employee’s death, legal heirs may withdraw the funds. Both spouses may together withdraw in certain cases. Examples may be the termination of pregnancy, the birth of a stillborn child, failure to reproduce or adopt a child or no more children being planned.

Balance is the way to go

I may not have been able to foresee every possible issue with this system of parental leave. All the same, I do believe that only a parental leave system built around ‘balance’ and gender-neutrality can be the ideal solution. 

In terms of an old African proverb:

“It takes a village to raise a child”.

While the India of past afforded that ‘village’ to children easily in form of joint families, the same is no longer very easy with nuclear families becoming the norm. As such, it becomes imperative that the two parents at least are able to support each other through the ardous journey of parenthood. Gender-neutral parental leave will be a much-needed step in the right direction.

One thought on “How To Make Parental Leave in India Gender-Neutral

  1. Pretty excited to see your blog.
    Thank you for sharing your views on paternity leave. I completely support your suggestion to solve this issue. There is no denying the fact that if a male parent is wanting to take paternity leave to look after the family to co-parent or just to relieve mums from their duties it very well should be allowed as a well laid policy. My only concern is the willingness. With any parental leave the consequences can be career penalties over time. If only we can guarantee a world without disapprovals, judgments and criticisms….
    What keeps my hope high is to realize that humankind (read HR) has evolved a lot in past 10 years.

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