Title: Parental leave policies and issues: is Canada there yet?

Authors: Stefane Kabene; Said Baadel

Addresses: Canadian University Dubai, Sh. Zayed Rd, P.O. Box 117781, Dubai, UAE ' Canadian University Dubai, Sh. Zayed Rd, P.O. Box 117781, Dubai, UAE; University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, UK

Abstract: While paternity leave popularity is increasing in Canada and other countries worldwide, Canada still lags behind many European nations in terms of its parental leave policies. Women tend to make use of maternity leave whereas male employees do not fully utilise their paternal leave entitlements. Our paper takes a look at current Canadian parental policy and compares it to some Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) counterparts. We use Sweden as a benchmark in this study. The paper concludes and recommends parental leave policies to be extended and improved upon because such improvements are directly tied to a decrease in infant mortality, an increase in overall child health and economic advantages such as lower healthcare costs.

Keywords: employment insurance; EI; glass-ceiling factor; OECD; maternity leave; parental leave; Canada.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMD.2018.093605

International Journal of Management Development, 2018 Vol.2 No.1, pp.1 - 9

Received: 27 Sep 2016
Accepted: 23 Jul 2017
Published online: 30 Jul 2018 *

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