--- title: Mothers Get Eight Times More Paid Leave Than Fathers, and Women Pay for the Gap Long After the Baby Arrives description: Mothers average 196 days of paid leave and fathers 25. In 66 of 190 economies fathers get none. What the parental leave gap costs women. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-02T10:30:57.050Z updated: 2026-11-02T22:37:58.751Z canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/mothers-paid-leave-eight-times-fathers image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-11973354.webp categories: Money, The Corner Office content_type: News region: Global publication: Rich Woman Magazine --- Around the world, a new mother is entitled on average to 196 days of paid leave. A new father is entitled to 25. Figures published by UN Women and the World Bank on 22nd October cover 190 economies, and in 66 of them fathers have no legal right to a single paid day. The gap looks like a gift to mothers. In practice it sets the pattern for who does the caring at home for years, and that pattern follows women back to work. ## The Parental Leave Gap in Numbers - **196 days against 25:** the average paid leave for mothers and fathers across 190 economies, a ratio of nearly eight to one. - **66 economies** give fathers no paid leave at all. Only six give mothers none. - **124 economies** do offer fathers paid leave, but half of them offer less than two weeks, and some offer a single day. - **61 economies** fall short of the International Labour Organization's minimum of 14 weeks' paid leave for mothers. - **Four economies** come close to equal leave for both parents: Iceland, with 180 days for each parent, Denmark with 168, Spain with 133 and New York City with 84. ## How Unequal Leave Shapes Unequal Lives The first months of a baby's life set habits. When the mother is at home for six months and the father is back at his desk after two weeks, she learns the feeds, the appointments, the nursery forms and the sick days. By the time she returns to work, she is the default parent, and both partners tend to treat it that way. Women already spend 2.5 times as many hours a day as men on unpaid care. Worldwide, 45% of working-age women are outside the paid workforce for that reason, against 5% of men. Among parents of a child under six, 53% of mothers aged 25 to 54 are in paid work, against 95% of fathers. Leave for fathers changes those numbers. When fathers take leave, they go on sharing more of the childcare and housework long after it ends. Mothers whose partners take leave earn more, take fewer sick days and are more likely to stay in work. A smaller gap between maternity and paternity leave goes with more women in the workforce across countries. There is a second effect that reaches you even if you never have children. When only women take long leave, employers learn to see every woman of childbearing age as a future absence. When men take leave too, the 'motherhood penalty' on hiring and promotion has less to feed on. ## Norway's 15 Weeks for Fathers Norway reserves 15 weeks of parental leave at full pay for the father. If he does not take them, the family loses them. In 2022, 90% of Norwegian fathers took parental leave, and 70% took exactly the length of their quota. The design matters more than the headline offer. Leave shared between parents and paid at a low flat rate is mostly taken by mothers, especially where men earn more. Leave reserved for each parent and paid close to full salary is the version fathers take. Spain moved its fathers from two weeks of paid leave in 2017 to 16 weeks in 2021, equal to mothers, and paid both in full. South Korea gives each parent their own entitlement of up to a year and raises the pay when both parents use it. ## Paternity Leave in the UK In the UK, fathers have had the right to paternity leave from their first day in a job since 6th April 2026. The pay has not moved. [Statutory paternity pay](https://richwoman.co/article/self-employed-paternity-pay-2029) is £194.32 a week, or 90% of average weekly earnings if that is lower, for up to two weeks. Shared parental leave exists, but it is paid at the same flat rate, which means a steep drop in income for many families if the higher earner takes it. If you are planning a family, the leave your partner can take matters as much to your own career as the leave you can take. It is worth asking your partner's employer, and your own, what they pay above the statutory minimum before the baby arrives rather than after. ## Childcare After Parental Leave Ends Leave only covers the first months. Of the 190 economies, 44 have no laws at all on childcare for children under three, and fewer than half give families any financial or tax help with it. When leave ends and no affordable childcare is ready, it is usually the mother who stays home. Finland gives every child under school age a legal right to subsidised childcare from the day parental leave ends. Quebec's low-fee childcare scheme, introduced in 1997, is linked to more mothers in paid work and longer working weeks. The UN Women and World Bank brief closes with seven recommendations for governments. The first two set out the shape of a fix: leave and childcare planned as one continuous system, and paid leave reserved for fathers that cannot be handed to the mother.