Just recently, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg had announced that he plans to take a two-month parental leave when his wife gives birth to their first daughter. According to reports, the two-month duration is half of what Facebook is providing in its current policy, which allows new parents in the United States to have four months at max off of work to support their families. Now, the largest social network is reportedly expanding that policy to include soon-to-be parents working in the company who work full-time, regardless of what their genders are or which countries they live.
"We want to be there for our people at all stages of life, and in particular we strive to be a leading place to work for families. An important part of this is offering paid parental or 'baby' leave," wrote Lori Matloff Goler, Facebook's Human Resources head, in a Facebook post. She also mentioned that the new update to the policy primarily affects men and people in same-sex relationships globally. However, it will not alter the existing maternity leave practices that are currently available to all Facebook employees worldwide.
According to the Facebook post, the company has decided to make this chance as they believe it is the right thing to do for their employees and their families. Studies show that parents who take their time off so they can spend time with their newborns deliver better outcomes for both the children and families.
According to Pew Research, almost half of fathers begin to worry that they don't get to spend enough time with their children. Facebook apparently acknowledges this problem and begins to offer all dads and same-sex partners who work in the company four months of paid leave to bond with a new baby, regardless of them being the primary caregiver or not. They can take the leave at any point up to a year after the baby was born.
Facebook is one of the tech companies that have begun updating their paternity leave policies, making Silicon Valley's largest companies more family friendly.
