A report by King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice found that six weeks of paid paternity leave would add a net £2.68bn a year to the UK economy. The report, which reviewed 33 international studies, suggests that this type of leave could reduce relationship breakdown after a birth.
The authors of the report recommend six weeks of paternity leave paid at 90% of normal earnings, reserved for the father or second parent, and lost if unused. They also suggest that this leave should extend to self-employed parents and those on fixed-term, zero-hours, or temporary contracts.
Fathers in the UK are currently entitled to two weeks of statutory paternity leave paid at £194.32 a week or less, which the report describes as a fraction of the minimum wage. The report cites Trades Union Congress polling from 2023, which found that more than half of families reported financial difficulty when fathers took the leave.
Paternity Leave Around the World
The report notes that the UK is an outlier among high-income countries in offering fathers very little well-paid individual leave. Among the 52 countries in the International Network on Leave Policies and Research’s 2025 review, the UK offers one of the lowest amounts of paid paternity leave.
The report examines leave reforms in several countries, including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Canada, the UK, and the US. The authors found that when fathers take reserved leave, it changes what they do at home and supports mothers’ employment.
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For example, Quebec’s 2006 reform introduced five weeks of leave reserved for fathers at around 70% of earnings. The report found that the share of fathers claiming leave rose from 21.3% to about 74.3%, and mothers became about five percentage points more likely to participate in the labor force and work full-time.
Economic and Social Benefits
The report estimates that six weeks of well-paid, non-transferable leave could increase UK mothers’ employment and narrow the within-household earnings gap. The economic gains from this type of leave would concentrate among lower- and middle-income households, because higher-income fathers already have access to enhanced employer schemes. The report cites figures showing that only 12 to 14% of fathers with a household income of £20,000 to £25,000 had access to, and took, their full entitlement of employer-enhanced parental leave.
Relationship Breakdown and Health
The report also examines the impact of paternity leave on relationship breakdown and health. Ten of the 33 studies examined family health and stability, and the report found that leave was linked to better maternal health and more stable families.
In Iceland, a 2001 reform reserved one month of parental leave for fathers at 80% pay. The report found that this reform cut parental separation by around 11.6 percentage points five years after birth and 8.9 percentage points after 15 years.
Costs and Benefits
The £2.68bn figure comes from Joseph Rowntree Foundation modelling. The report estimates a £5.5bn increase in economic output from more mothers entering work or increasing their hours, offset by a £2.8bn reduction as fathers take time away from work.
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Professor Heejung Chung, professor of work and employment and director of King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, said: “Paternity leave is still too often treated simply as a bill for government and employers. But the strongest evidence shows that when fathers have leave of their own and can afford to take it, they do more care at home and mothers are better able to stay in paid work, which benefits the country economically.”
Shiyu Yuan, research assistant at the institute and co-author of the study, said: “A few extra weeks that families cannot afford will not deliver the economic and social gains so many other countries have seen. Nor will asking mothers to give up part of their own leave. New dads need time that belongs to them and is paid well enough for them to use it.”
Gary Barker, founder and chief executive of Equimundo, said: “The UK, like much of the world, is experiencing a transformation in how families divide work and caring.” He added: “Expanding paternity leave is a vital step on the path towards care equality.”
Julia Gillard, chair of King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, said “the UK can give dads more equality and enjoy the benefits of economic and social gains by addressing together the three problems which have been identified in the current system.”
George Gabriel, co-founder of The Dad Shift, the campaign group behind a dad strike over paternity leave, said: “Two weeks paternity leave simply isn’t enough. For the sake of this generation of parents, and our children, we need to get off the bottom place of Europe’s paternity leave league table and ensure the decent majority of dads who want to show up for their partners and babies aren’t blocked by the system from doing so.”