Maternity and Paternity Benefits: Eligibility and Requirements
Maternity and Paternity Benefits: Who is Eligible?
Motherhood: Contribution Benefit. Beneficiaries: Employees, regardless of sex, who are taking leave as provided in the ET (Workers’ Statute) and Law 30/1984 are eligible. Affiliates who are active or in a similar situation are also eligible when the rest period is enjoyed simultaneously or successively by both the mother and father, provided they independently meet the required criteria.
In the event of the mother’s death during or after labor, the other parent is entitled to the benefit, provided they meet the requirements, even if the mother was not included in the social security system. In the case of childbirth, if the working mother does not meet the required contribution period, the other parent shall be entitled, at the mother’s option, to receive the contributory allowance for the entire maternity leave period allowed, minus a period of 6 weeks (42 days), provided they meet the required contribution period.
If the mother is not entitled to suspend her activities with legal benefits, as per the rules governing this activity, the other parent shall be entitled to the contributory maternity allowance that would have corresponded to the mother if she met all requirements and was registered in the Social Security system.
Equivalent Situations
- Legal situation of unemployment, contributory level.
- Month following termination of public office or trade union office which led to active status or equivalent.
- Transfer of the employee by the company outside the national territory.
- Process initiated before birth: temporary period of suspension of the employment contract by decision of the worker who is forced to leave their jobs because of being a victim of gender violence.
- The situation of the worker during the period of annual paid leave that was not enjoyed before the end of the contract.
Paternity Leave: An Independent Right
Fatherhood: One of the new precedent causes of employment introduced by the Equality Act is the contractual suspension of paternity, configured as an independent right from the mother’s.
Paternity Leave Prerequisites
Employed persons, including those on training and recruitment contracts for part-time work, are entitled to rest periods for childbirth or adoption leave, provided they meet the following requirements:
- To be registered and signed up for a similar service.
- Accredit a minimum period of 180 trading days within the seven years immediately preceding the date of suspension, or alternatively, 360 days during their working life prior to the aforementioned date.
A suspension, and the corresponding provision by biological motherhood can be shared with the father of the child (or the “other parent” in the case of heterosexual couples), stopping by for the birth paternity of a child rests exclusively with the other parent, can not be shared with the mother. A different situation is the suspension of paternity in cases of adoption or foster care; in this case, the right belongs only to one parent.
At the choice of the male or female, but only when the rest period covered in art. 48.4 ET is enjoyed in full by one parent, the right to paternity suspension may only be exercised by the other. Thus, it may be the paradoxical fact that, having been received in full by the parent maternity allowance, only a mother can enjoy parenting.