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ARCHIVED - Major changes to parental leave under new Spanish Family Law
Unmarried couples and different types of families will now be fully recognised by law in Spain
After several weeks of disagreement and delay, Spain has given the green light to the draft Family Law on Tuesday December 13.
As was previously agreed, unemployed mothers will now receive 100 euros aid per child under 3, provided they were making social security contributions or receiving job seekers benefit the month the child was born. Women who have a part-time or temporary job will also receive 100% of the benefit. This change will reportedly benefit 250,000 additional families.
Single-parent families with two children or families with two parents and two children where either the child or adult are disabled will be allowed to enjoy the aid granted to large families. This will also affect families with two children headed by a victim of gender violence or by a spouse who has obtained exclusive custody without the right to child support.
One major bone of contention was the right for relatives to take time off from work to care for dependant relatives. Originally seven days a year was proposed, but this has eventually been agreed at fives days of paid leave, the minimum allowed by the EU.
A second sticking point has been maternity leave for single-parent families, which several parties wanted to extend to eight months. The government argued that women who raise their children alone – who make up the majority of single-parent families – could be harmed in the labour market if they had an eight-month break from work. Ultimately this argument won out and the period has been kept at four months.
The most radical changes, however, have been made in the area of parental leave:
- From now on, fathers and mothers will be entitled to eight weeks of parental leave for children under the age of 8. The time off can be enjoyed continuously or intermittently, but it will be unpaid.
- Common-law couples will be afforded the same rights as married couples and will thus be allowed 15 days of paid leave for registration.
- The law also generates a new framework of recognition and protection for LGTBI families, with a member with a disability, multiple families, reconstituted, adoptive or foster families.
Finally, the legislation prohibits parents and guardians from preventing access to content on family diversity through the so-called ‘parental PIN’ or any other similar mechanism in schools. The objective, according to Minister for Social Rights Ione Belarra, is not to “curtail the right of children and adolescents to participate in activities that talk about family diversity and contribute to the free development of their personality.”
“Anyone who has children or who has seen them raise knows how difficult it is to reconcile work and personal life in Spain, it is practically science fiction,” Ms Belarra said after the meeting today. Up until now, parents have been expected to be “superheroes,” she added, but the new law wants them “to be only mothers and fathers, which is enough”.
Image: Pixabay
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