Across Asia, the role of parental leave is gaining recognition as a driver of national development and social progress. When well-designed, parental leave can serve as a lever to advance gender equity, improve family health, boost workforce participation, and respond to ageing population pressures.
As more countries across the region adopt and develop parental leave frameworks, however, it’s clear that evidence-based implementation is key to unlocking their full potential.
Parental leave challenges across Asia
While most countries across Asia offer some form of parental leave, its impact varies widely and is often challenged by cultural norms and structures.
Across low and middle-income Asian countries, high rates of informal employment often exclude workers from parental leave. Without legal protections or social security, many informal workers cannot access these critical benefits. This means that many women in the informal economy return to work within two months of giving birth, often without adequate rest and recovery, to avoid income loss.
Even in high-income Asian countries, where parental leave tends to be more generous in largely formalised economies, there are shared obstacles with middle and low-income countries that limit their full potential — with insufficient paternity leave being a key factor.
New research across a sample of 21 Asian jurisdictions found that while maternity leave averages 106 days, paternity leave is far less common and much shorter, at just 7.3 days on average. Vietnam, for instance, provides mothers with 183 days of leave, but just five for fathers; Indonesia provides just two days of paternity leave; and in India, there is no statutory paternity leave at all.
These obstacles must be addressed to harness the full benefit of parental leave across the region.
Singapore’s evolving approach to parental leave
Singapore’s recent parental leave developments demonstrate how evidence-based reforms can deliver impact — and set a standard for other Asian countries with similar cultural structures.
The changes, effective for babies born after 1 April this year, introduce six-weeks of shared parental leave on top of existing entitlements, giving couples a total of 30 weeks of paid leave in their child’s first year.
By expanding paternity leave, the updates could support the normalisation of fathers’ caregiving and shift gender norms in the home and at work.
Dr Tan Poh Lin, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, says that the doubling of paternity leave from 2 to 4 weeks "sends a signal that new fathers are expected to be away from the workplace for a substantial period, rather than only briefly absent.”
“With the addition of 10 weeks of shared parental leave come April 2026, fathers can now be away with the baby for almost as long as mothers, which can be a game-changer,” she says.
How shared parental leave generates socioeconomic benefits
Gaps between maternity and paternity leave can be a significant barrier to gender equality across Asia. For example, despite 78 per cent of married couples under 35 being dual-career couples and most women working full-time, women in Singapore continue to shoulder caregiving duties. Therefore, parental leave with substantial paternity leave promotes gender equality and advances broader social and economic progress.
Paternity leave encourages fathers’ involvement in family and domestic life by equalising caregiving duties and shifting bargaining power, benefitting both women and family dynamics. This active engagement reduces family stress, supports children’s development, eases parents’ return to work, and even lowers rates of intimate partner violence among other positive outcomes for mothers and society.
“A more equal start can set the trajectory for the rest of childhood years,” explains Dr Tan, “with working fathers and mothers shaping more egalitarian expectations of each other, rather than the mother being the sole default caregiver because she was around more in the first four months.”
Dr Tan Poh Lin notes that because children are time-intensive to raise, shared leave strengthens family bonds by helping couples build routines and caregiving habits, which reduces conflicts over time.
Parental leave also generates long-term economic benefits and resilience in ageing societies.
Shared parental leave boosts labour force productivity, delivers long-term cost savings, and helps companies attract and retain top talent as workers increasingly seek employment that fits their needs.
Parental leave also strengthens workplace commitment and morale through signaling a more inclusive work culture — benefitting both employers and national economic goals. For example, paid maternity leave significantly increases women’s workforce return, with expanded policies cutting new mother attrition by up to fifty per cent.
Considerations for effective parental leave
Shared leave schemes alone don’t guarantee the promotion of gender balance, as cultural norms can inhibit their impact if not designed strategically. The capacity for parental leave to come to full fruition in propelling development goals, therefore, requires new thinking to accompany policy changes.
In much of Asia, paternity leave remains underutilised by new fathers due to workplace stigma and the perception of caregiving as women's responsibility. In countries like Japan and Korea, where a full year of paternity leave is available, uptake remains low. Similar trends are evident across Singapore.
Because parents have the flexibility to decide how the shared leave entitlement is distributed in Singapore’s new policy changes, Dr Tan says that its success is contingent on high take-up rates by men.
“There is still a rival component of shared parental leave,” says Dr Tan. “Some families may instead allocate all of the leave to working mothers, which would then lead to further specialisation of household responsibilities.”
“Hence, the leave provisions need to go hand in hand with building cultural acceptance of new fathers being away and even frowning on those who come back too soon to the office, for families and working mothers to fully benefit.”
Supportive organisational cultures, therefore, play a significant role in harnessing parental leave benefits. Additionally, safeguards are needed to prevent employers from discriminating against prospective parents — regardless of gender — so that both parents can take leave.
Dr Tan adds that the development of a robust leave cover industry, which can allow employers to find low-cost replacements and other solutions for extended caregiving leave, is another important component to facilitate impactful parental leave.
While meaningful impact will depend on implementation, supported by strong workplace protections and structural incentives that normalise leave-taking for fathers, Singapore’s reform of family leave has the potential to shift entrenched thinking and drive socioeconomic gains. It is also a reminder of how policymaking needs to consider evolving norms and respond to the approach of building more inclusive, future-ready care systems.