New research from Deel finds the UK has the widest gap between mothers’ and fathers’ parental leave take-up across the major economies analysed, despite having one of the most flexible shared-parental-leave systems on paper.
UK mothers take a median 195 days of leave, compared with 10 days for fathers. The research argues that policy architecture—not just headline generosity—plays a decisive role in whether leave is shared in practice.
Key takeaways
- Shared parental-leave pools do not automatically produce equal uptake; reserved, non-transferable leave for each parent is associated with narrower gaps.
- Fathers frequently take close to the statutory minimum, suggesting entitlement can act as both a floor and a ceiling.
- Company size is the strongest predictor of leave length in Deel’s analysis, with a clear effect on what parents can take.
“The UK is the clearest example. On paper its system looks generous… Yet it produces the widest maternity-to-paternity gap of any major country in our data.”
— Deel research
Generous leave on paper, unequal leave in practice
The UK offers up to a year of maternity leave, two weeks of statutory paternity leave and the option to transfer up to 50 weeks through Shared Parental Leave. Yet the research finds that the structure has not translated into equal sharing: British fathers take a median 10 weekdays of leave, matching their two-week statutory allowance.
Deel’s analysis contrasts the UK with Spain, where each parent receives an identical, fully paid and non-transferable leave entitlement. Spanish fathers take a median 70 weekdays, compared with 85 for mothers—the narrowest gap in the study.
Across the 12 principal countries in the analysis, fathers took 16.4 fewer weeks than mothers after controlling for occupation, age, seniority, pay and entitlement. In the UK, the controlled gap was 13.2 weeks.
Why policy design matters
Several countries with the shortest paternity leave—including the UK, Australia and Singapore—allow parents to split a shared pool. Sweden and Germany also use shared leave, but reserve a substantial portion for fathers that is lost if unused. Where that reservation is small, mothers tend to take most of the shared entitlement.
The data also shows that fathers often take only the minimum guaranteed by law. French fathers take a median 20 weekdays, Italian fathers 10 compulsory working days and Singaporean fathers 20 days. By contrast, white-collar professional fathers in the US take a median 5.6 weeks, despite there being no federal right to paid parental leave.
Pay and retention
The research finds that mothers are more likely to use annual leave or sick leave to extend their parental leave. Globally, 49.7% of mothers used other paid leave around a birth episode, compared with 40.3% of fathers.
Pay replacement is also uneven. British mothers still on leave after four months receive less than half of their usual take-home pay on average, while fathers do not experience a comparable reduction. Deel says this has implications for gender pay reporting, retention and return-to-work outcomes.
Across all 12 countries, 30% of mothers had left their job within six months of their leave ending, compared with 23% of fathers. In the UK, the difference between mothers’ and fathers’ exit rates ranged from 10 to 11 percentage points.
The employer factor
Company size emerged as the strongest predictor of how long parents take off. Holding other factors constant, mothers at mid-market firms took 79 fewer weekdays than mothers at large employers, while mothers at SMBs took 84 fewer weekdays.
Deel suggests that large employers may make longer leave easier to take through better pay replacement, more generous policies and greater capacity to cover an absence.
Methodology
The dataset covers 7,285 parents across 97 countries between 2021 and 2026: 4,116 on paternity leave, 3,076 on maternity leave and 93 whose leave type could not be identified. The analysis focuses on 12 countries with sufficient volume for reliable comparisons: Sweden, the UK, the US, Germany, France, India, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Singapore and Australia.
Deel used anonymised time-off, payroll and HR records for employees who took parental leave. The dataset oversamples white-collar professionals, which should be considered when interpreting the findings.
