Hong Kong’s fathers are entitled to a paltry three days of paternity leave. But that looks set to change as the government mulls plans to increase the amount of time dads can take off to bond with their newborns to five, that’s right, five days.
The, um, progressive idea to increase paternity leave to five whole days came from chief executive Carrie Lam during her policy address last month, RTHK reports.
The increase is something of a victory for some like Bill Tang from the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, who said that his union members agrees with five days.
Speaking to reporters after a Labour Advisory Board meeting, the former lawmaker said he acknowledged that many dads want seven days off, but understood concerns from some employers that businesses will suffer if dads start taking time off to help their partners to look after their newborns.
The proposal will now be presented to LegCo, with Tang calling for a review after a year to see if paternity leave can be increased to seven days from five. Baby steps.
This, of course, is not the first time increasing paternity leave has been discussed in Hong Kong. Paid paternity leave was only made compulsory in February 2015 after lawmakers approved amendments to the Employment Ordinance in December 2014. Pan-democrat lawmakers — some carrying toy dolls — at the time tried to increase the number of days to seven days but were voted down.
Still, five days paternity leave is better than most places, including the US, which does not have mandatory paid parental leave — although individual states such as California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island offer partial paid leave.
Hong Kong, however, is way behind Sweden which offers 480 days of paid parental leave for each parent, while new dads in Australia and New Zealand get 18 weeks paid parental leave.
