Statutory paternity leave for fathers has been introduced in Parliament.
The Family Leave Bill, 2025, piloted in the House of Assembly yesterday by Minister of Labour and Social Security Colin Jordan, provides for fathers to be given three weeks’ paternity leave, while maternity leave will increase from its current 12 weeks to 14 for single births, and 17 weeks for multiple births.
The long-mooted measure was contained in the Budget Speech presented by Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn in March, with the proposal it should take effect from June 1, 2025.
The bill repeals the Employment of Women (Maternity Leave) Act 1978, makes better provision for paternity leave and provides access for a family to have leave together at the birth of a child or in the early months following birth.
A male employee will be entitled to take the three weeks as a continuous period, or have it split into a period of not less than two weeks within the first three months of the birth of the child and not less than one week before the child is six months old. He will be entitled to only one paternity leave benefit within a 12-month period and must submit to his employer a document signed by the woman, stating that he is the father of the child for whom the claim for paternity leave is being made.
Penalties
The bill also provides for the imposition of penalties on both paternity and maternity leave claimants, and employers.
Any employer who contravenes or fails to comply with any of the provisions is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $50 000, imprisonment for 24 months, or both. An employee who knowingly gives false information in relation
to the application for paternity or maternity leave will be guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $10 000, jail for 24 months, or both.
While the National Insurance and Social Security Service had earlier stated the paternity benefit was active, and applications for benefits were being received, the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) questioned the roll-out of the new paternity leave policy in a recent statement.
BEC executive director Sheena Mayers-Granville pointed out the policy had not been debated in Parliament and contended that without the attendant legislation, employers could not be mandated to grant the proposed leave.
Yesterday, while acknowledging the matter was now statutory, Jordan also welcomed the removal of the restriction of the number of paid confinements allowed by employers, in the former legislation, to three.
He told the House that while removing the restriction will not remove Barbados’ demographic changes, “if we are speaking to raising our population, now estimated at less than “ 270 000, addressing the population challenge would have to be multi-pronged”. (GC)