A further step towards gender equality in the workplace

A further step towards gender equality in the workplace: mandatory paternity leave becomes structural

Paternity leave represents a fundamental tool for promoting the culture of sharing in the care of children and in promoting full gender equality in the distribution of parental roles, helping to eradicate, at least in principle, the idea that it is always and only the woman to be absent from work following maternity.

The recent Legislative Decree 30 June 2022 n. 105, implementing Directive (EU) 2019/1158 on the balance between professional activity and family life for parents, which also affects mandatory paternity leave.

We recall that this leave was provided for the first time, on an experimental basis for the two-year period 2013-2015, by law 92/2012 (the so-called Fornero law) and originally had a duration of only one day. In the following years it was gradually extended, again on an experimental basis, by successive budget laws and, in parallel, its duration was progressively extended. Only with the budget law of the year 2022 was the mandatory paternity leave stabilized.

Finally, with the recent Legislative Decree 20 June 2022 n. 105 compulsory paternity leave has found a definitive place within the Consolidated Law on parenting (Legislative Decree 151/2002), its natural sedes matters , and has been partially modified in the discipline.