Father's Day, the use of paternity leave has tripled in 10 years

Vanity Fair he told it with the stories of many fathers. Today in Italy there are cutting-edge companies that offer new fathers three months paid at 100%. Everyone benefits, including mothers and businesses themselves. On the occasion of Father's Day, Parliament is working on a law to extend the paternity leave beyond the current 10 days. A need so felt that, according to data from Save the Children, in Italy the rate of use of paternity leave more than tripled between 2013 and 2022.

Who asks?

I'm the one asking for paternity leave workers who are over 30 years old, live in the North, work in medium-large sized companies with a stable employment contract and have a medium-high income. This is the portrait of the father who takes advantage of paternity leave according to Save the Children's processing of the new INPS data.

Use varies depending on age, type of contract, company size, income and area of ​​residence. Those who benefit the most live in the Northern provinces, while the rate drops in those of the South. Use values ​​lower than 30% are found in the provinces of Crotone (24%), Trapani (27%), Agrigento and Vibo Valentia (29% in both provinces). Values ​​above 80% (the highest) are recorded in the provinces of Bergamo and Lecco (81% in both cases), Treviso (82%), Vicenza (83%) and Pordenone (85%).

Those who use leave the most are men in the age groups between 30 and 39 (65.4%) and between 40 and 49 (65.6%). Added to this is the fact that the father is more likely to take paternity leave if he works in medium-large companies. Among those with over 100 employees, use is equal to 77%, while it drops to 67.8% in those with between 51 and 100 employees, to 60% among those with between 16 and 50 employees, up to to 45.2% in companies with 15 employees or fewer. However, the greatest increase in use was recorded in this last type of company: +8.7% between 2021 and 2022.

Among workers with a permanent contract the percentage of use is close to 70%, drops to 35.95 among those with a fixed-term contract. For seasonal workers it is 19.72%. The use of paternity leave is more widespread among fathers with an income between 15 thousand and 28 thousand euros (73.3%) and among those with an income greater than 28 thousand euros and less than 50 thousand (85.68%).

Increase

The data shows that the percentage of fathers who take advantage of paternity leave more than tripled between 2013 and 2022. In 2013, in fact, just under 1 in 5 fathers took advantage of it (equal to 19.25%), that is, 51,745 fathers, while in 2022, there were more than 3 in 5 (equal to 64.02%), that is, 172,797 fathers. There are few differences depending on whether they are parents of the first (65.88%), second or subsequent child (62.08%).

What the law says

When it was introduced in 2012, paternity leave provided for only one compulsory day and two optional ones, while today it guarantees 10 mandatory days and one optional one for new fathers and can be used between the two months before and 5 after giving birth. In Italy, there are a total of ten months of parental leave for both parents in the first 12 years of life. Each parent has the right to abstain from work for a total period of no more than ten months.

The proposal

«It is necessary to support this change, to move in the direction of paternity leave for all workers, not just employees, ensuring that employers fulfill their obligation to recognize this right, and until reaching its equivalence with paternity leave compulsory maternity leave. This is a measure also in support of new mothers, in a period of life that is too often difficult and characterized by feelings of inadequacy and loneliness” says Giorgia D'Errico, Director of Public Affairs and Institutional Relations at Save the Children.

The bill first signed by Lia Quartapelle of the Democratic Party provides for compulsory paternity leave, for a continuous period of five months, in the first 3 years of the child's life, with an allowance equal to 100 percent of the salary. This also applies in the case of adoption. The cost to the State would be equal to 4.5 billion starting from 2024.