In recent years, after an economic crisis that has taken its toll on our country, Spanish society has embarked on some paths for which there is no turning back . If a crisis of this magnitude is good for anything, it is to look at ourselves in the mirror and observe all the defects and weaknesses that have led us to this situation.
Among the many determinations that we were able to define after this period, undoubtedly one of the most important has been to place, definitively and irrevocably, the debate on gender equality on the table, a table that in 2018 is none other than that of the Congress of Deputies. It has opened the debate about equal and non-transferable paternity leave, a topic we will continue to hear about in the coming months. Among the many demands that the egalitarian movement has raised in recent years, reaching its highest point on March 8 during the International Women’s Day demonstrations, the most important one is that the effective equality between men and women in the workplace has been one of the most transcendental and urgent: to eliminate with the salary gapthe end of glass ceilings, or the achievement of the equal and non-transferable paternity leave are some of the main proposals.
The latter has been translated into the bill presented by the Unidos Podemos group in Congress last July, under the name of Law on Equal and Non-Transferable Parental Leave for births, adoptions and foster carewhich had the unanimous support of the Chamber for its debate and subsequent processing.
This measure, with great prospects of being approved, proposes the establishment of the equal paternity and maternity leave up to 16 weeks, non-transferable and 100% paid.
Towards equal paternity leave
Paternity leave is an allowance granted to workers who suspend their employment contract or stop working during the days established for the birth, adoption or fostering of a child.
Currently, women have six weeks of mandatory leave compared to five for men -which until a few months ago stood at four-, following the extension produced as a result of the approval of the 2018 General State Budget Law of last July 4.
In addition, there are currently another ten weeks that, in theory, would remain in the hands of the parents in order to decide who enjoys them, but that in practice end up being assumed almost entirely by women.
In fact, according to the latest available data from the Social Security -referring to the first quarter of 2018-, only 1.75% of fathers assumed the interchangeable weeks (1,099 of the 63,832 leaves granted).
Faced with this regulation, this bill, in the absence of possible modifications during its parliamentary processing, proposes that these leaves be an “individual right” of the mother and father . In this way, “each parent will have the right to the same period of suspension without any part of it being transferred or shared, and with the right to a 100% benefit”.
The total leave for each would be 16 weeks and two different periods are set for men.
The first, called “initial parental leave”, would be of two weeks and must be taken from the birth or adoption of the child.
The next would be the so-called “parental leave for upbringing” , which would have an extension of 14 weeks.
Fathers would be obliged to take four weeks of full-time parental leave and another 10 weeks of voluntary parental leave.
Mothers, on the other hand, are guaranteed 16 weeks.
In any case, everything remains in the hands of the debate that, on returning from vacation, will have to take place in Congress.
A debate in which the initial positions, in spite of the more than possible confrontations, seem to be aimed at promoting understanding between the different parliamentary groups, and therefore, to the approval of the equal and non-transferable paternity leaves. If you have just become a parent and need advice on any matter related to family law or your benefits, do not hesitate to contact me.
