Each parent is … Cyprus: 18 weeks. Paid maternity leave was recently extended to 105 days from six weeks. The countries also offer generous amounts of paid maternity leave. For 2019, all country notes have been edited by five of the network’s coordinators: Sonja Blum, Ivana Dobroti ... Statutory Maternity leave: April 2019 Many countries have a statutory and designated Maternity leave entitlement. Cyprus is not an OECD member. In fact, in six countries – Canada, Israel, Slovakia, Switzerland, Costa Rica and New Zealand – maternity leave accounts for all available paid leave related to the birth or … Oleksandr Savchuk/Shutterstock This island country gives new mothers 18 weeks of maternity leave. The European Union sets the minimum period of paid leave at 14 weeks, with a mandatory leave of at least two weeks taken immediately before or after childbirth. Sweden Swedish legislation on this issue is more gender neutral than in other Member States. In 20 of 41 countries, the majority of all paid leave available is allocated for maternity leave. Enrolment rates for children younger than three exceed 50 per cent in only six countries: Luxembourg and Sweden (51 per cent), Norway (52 per cent), Iceland (65 … But this changed in the mid-2000s when the country implemented a spate of policies to help mothers back into employment. Croatia is also not an OECD member country, but its maternity leave is well above the OECD average. maternity leave. However, any payment need only be an adequate allowance as determined by individual national governments. Rather than maternity leave, as shown on the graph, parental leave is the most relevant. Mothers receive 20 weeks of maternity leave at 100% of pay. A simple analysis of the table above might lead you to conclude that the UK has significantly better maternity leave provision… Moms are paid 75.2% of their salary, which would come out to 13.5 weeks off if they were fully-paid. Germany offers 67 weeks of time off, which is paid out at 67% of the parent’s salary for 10 months following the end of maternity leave. Parliament’s vote on the package is scheduled for 4 April 2019. An additional year of leave can be granted, though the rate of pay is a sliding scale: First 26 weeks: 100%; Weeks 27 to 39: 60%; Weeks 40 to 52: 30%; The Philippines. Norway, Finland, and Iceland were the top three best countries for mothers. Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" and "paternity leave" to describe separate family leave available to either parent to care for small children. Consequently, there are significant differences between the entitlements of different countries within the EU. Less than one in 10 children under the age of three do so in the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland and Slovakia.