New fathers in Hong Kong will soon be able to spend a week with their newborns before having to return to the office. Well, a “business week.”
It’s five days, okay.
Or, in other words, an extra two days than were previously provided under the government’s statutory paternity leave requirements.
The bill adding the additional 48 hours was passed yesterday by lawmakers at the Legislative Council, according to HK01.
The bill is expected to take effect next year.
Although the legislation was passed by 54 votes, with four absentations and one objection, the debate surrounding its passage took 13 hours and became heated, the SCMP reported.
Pan-democrats moved to have the amount of leave extended to seven days but were shot down.
According to the newspaper, IT sector lawmaker Charles Mok called the five-day period “embarrassing” when companies like Facebook offered staff up to four months.
He accused employers of using small and medium sized enterprises — which claimed longer periods of paternity leave would create manpower shortages — as an “excuse.”
The period pales in comparison to schemes in places like Sweden, where new dads have 90 days of leave reserved for them.
For a good comparison of paternity leave around the world check out this handy color coded map.
The LegCo decision yesterday came weeks after Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the government would move to extend maternity leave from 10 to 14 weeks.
