London—Dentons, the world's largest law firm, has published a unique guide comparing the length of maternity, paternity, adoption and shared leave entitlement - and the rates of pay associated with it, across 85 countries.

The 'Global Family Leave and Pay Snapshot' can be accessed here. Key insights include:

Type of leave

• Shared parental leave is the least common type.
• Adoption leave - an important type of leave particularly for same sex parents, varies greatly between countries. Even where it is offered there may still be qualifying conditions in some parts of the world limiting access to it by gender.

Length of leave

• This ranges from none to over a year.
• There is still a pattern of little or no paternity leave in many countries, while most offer some form of maternity leave though it varies greatly in length.

Rates of pay

• The rate of pay ranges from nil to full pay. For leave entitlements to translate into meaningful take-up, it usually needs to be paid at over 50%. In some countries where low rates of pay are present employers step in to enhance the statutory pay, which can then become the market norm.

Countries offering generous entitlements include:

• Slovakia, Finland, Spain, Norway and the Netherlands provide the longest paternity leave paid at over 50%.
• Poland, Slovakia and Chile provide the longest maternity leave paid at over 50%.
• Japan, Finland, Poland, Romania and Germany provide the longest adoption leave paid at over 50%.

'This guide will help businesses to design Global Family Leave policies providing consistent employee benefits around the world, but it also offers some fascinating insights into the social norms and gender expectations on raising families in different countries', said Elouisa Crichton, Counsel in Dentons' People, Reward & Mobility team. 'The Spanish leave system builds in gender balance: when a baby is born both parents get the same right to four months of exclusive leave paid at over 50%. In contrast, while the UK's shared parental leave regime allows parents to split time off equally if they choose, the default position is that maternity leave lasts for 52 weeks, with paternity leave lasting only two weeks. In many other countries, where there is no leave sharing available, a difference between maternity and paternity leave/pay is more fixed, and can be either a reflection, a driver - or both, in respect of expected gender based family roles.

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