Paternity leave is a straightforward concept. It’s leave for fathers or non-birthing parents. Accessing and implementing paternity leave is where things get complicated.
Paternity leave is challenging in part because there’s no federal law providing it in the United States. When an employee welcomes a child into their family, their leave is usually a patchwork of time off provided by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), state paid family medical leave, and their employer’s policies.
Shifting cultural expectations also play into the challenges surrounding paternity leave. More men are taking time off to bond with their children. Among younger employees, paternity leave is a baseline expectation, not a generous benefit.
In this article, we’ll explore what paternity leave is, why it can be difficult to administer, and how your company can provide it without any frustration.
What Is Paternity Leave?
Paternity leave is time off taken by a non-birthing parent after the arrival of a child. It’s a leave of absence that can be triggered by a child’s birth, adoption, or foster placement.
While still common, paternity and maternity leave policies are being replaced by parental leave policies. Parental leave provides time off for any type of parent, regardless of whether they gave birth or are in a relationship with someone who gave birth. Parental leave policies are more inclusive and reflect modern family structures more accurately.
While the term “paternity leave” is common, some laws and policies provide leave that could be considered paternity leave without calling it that. Fathers can take time off under the FMLA to bond with their child. But the law does not refer to their time off as paternity leave. Similarly, employers may offer a parental leave policy that grants time off to non-birthing parents without using that vocabulary.
Because of this, there’s often some confusion when it comes to paternity leave. Employees don’t usually know what they’re entitled to. Overlapping laws and policies make paternity leave provisions even more difficult to untangle. This puts pressure on HR. Your team needs to have an accurate understanding of the coverage new parents receive. And you also need to be able to communicate that quickly and clearly to the employees planning for their growing families.
Is Paternity Leave Required By Law?
Paternity leave can be required by law, but it differs statute to statute. When an employee wants to take paternity leave, their time away could be covered by several laws at the same time. It all depends on where they live, where your organization operates, and the particulars of the employee’s situation. Let’s answer the most common questions about the laws offering paternity leave, paid or unpaid.
Does FMLA Cover Paternity Leave?
Here’s the quick answer: Yes. The FMLA doesn’t call the leave it provides paternity leave. But employees can take FMLA leave after a child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement. This gives birthing and non-birthing parents up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. It’s job-protected time off to care for their families and bond with their child.
Now for the more complicated details. As you probably know, employees have to be eligible for FMLA leave. They need to work for an organization that employs 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in the current or previous calendar year. And they need to have worked for their employer for 1,250 hours within the 12 months prior to the time of leave. There are a few additional requirements, which you can learn about in AbsenceSoft’s Comprehensive HR Guide to FMLA Compliance.
Which States Have Paid Paternity Leave?
Many states have laws on the books offering paid family leave. While some of these statutes provide leave for fathers and non-birthing parents, they may not refer to this time off as paternity leave. Most modern policy language has shifted toward parental leave instead.
In Oregon, for example, eligible employees can take up to 12 weeks of paid leave to bond with a child in the first year after birth or placement through adoption or foster care. Employees in Washington get similar coverage through the state’s paid family and medical leave law, but the details regarding eligibility are very different.
To see whether a specific state has a paid family leave program, use AbsenceSoft’s Leave Law Lookup.
Paid Family Leave Laws Are Everywhere, Causing Challenges for HR
There is no federal law mandating paid paternity leave, maternity leave, or parental leave. Without it, states and localities are stepping up to provide paid time off. This is good news for workers, but it makes things complicated for HR.
State and local paid parental leave laws provide the same thing: time off for new moms and dads, with compensation. But the particulars of these laws vary widely. HR has to remember that employees in Oregon may be eligible for paid family leave if they made at least $1,000 the year before they asked for leave. But employees in neighboring Washington aren’t eligible for similar benefits unless they’ve worked at least 820 hours during a qualifying period determined by the state.
That’s a lot for HR to keep track of. To make matters more complex, states pass new leave laws and make changes to the ones that already exist every single year. It’s a growing patchwork of legislation that’s getting more tangled as time goes on.
The Multi-State Compliance Challenge
State and local leave laws are most challenging for employers with distributed workforces. If you have employees in multiple states, your team needs to track overlapping obligations.
But the challenge doesn’t just stem from entitlements. HR must also coordinate between state pay and employer-paid top-ups. State laws operate with varying pay structures, benefit levels, and compensation requirements. It’s incredibly difficult to parse out the right approach. But it’s essential, both for compliance reasons and the employee experience. Pay errors were the second-most reported issue with leave, according to AbsenceSoft’s 2026 Leave of Absence Employee Experience Report.
Company Policies Add Operational Challenges
Offering paid leave can create a positive impact on your leave program and your organization. Employees with new or expanding family responsibilities value these benefits, as they can improve their work-life balance during particularly busy times. Employers, in turn, can use them to recruit and retain talent.
Because paid time off is such a powerful benefit, many employers are offering it. A 2026 AbsenceSoft study showed that 65% of employers now offer paid parental leave, specifically.
For employers to see ROI from paid paternity leave policies, they need to administer them correctly. Leave administrators who are already managing growing caseloads may find this a challenging task.
The Operational Cost of Policy Changes
When your organization creates its own paternity or parental leave policy, it’s up to HR to administer it. Leave managers must roll out the policy, educating employees about their benefits and explaining upcoming changes. Then they must track the leaves of absence, ensuring that every new parent has the opportunity to take the time off they’re allotted. Finally, the team needs to report on the trends, using data to tell a story about how employees interact with the new policy.
These tasks are made more challenging by the fact that many leave platforms and outsourcing platforms cannot handle custom policies. If your organization uses a third-party administrator to manage leave, you may need to have someone from your internal HR team handle parental leave.
Paternity Leave Is Becoming More Popular, But Barriers Remain
In recent years, paid family leave has become more popular as employees have spoken up about the demands of caregiving on their work, finances, and well-being. Paternity leave has been no exception. Even so, cultural roadblocks continue to prevent some fathers from accessing leave, even when a policy is in place.
Do Men Want to Take Paternity Leave?
There’s no doubt that more men are taking paternity leave. According to research from the U.S. Census Bureau, 77% of men who became fathers prior to 1994 did not take leave following the birth of their first child. That number plunged to 35% among fathers in the 2014-2022 cohort.
This trend reflects widespread acceptance of leave. AbsenceSoft data shows that most employees are comfortable requesting leave. In fact, a breakdown of our data by generation shows that an equal proportion of employees in every age bracket are confident asking for time off.
Are Men Afraid to Take Paternity Leave?
Despite a growing acceptance toward leaves of absence, there are cultural barriers that may keep men from using their paternity leave. Some men fear retaliation. Others worry that taking time off would damage their reputation or reduce their earning potential.
Managers can play a powerful role in reducing these concerns. Managers are the first point of contact for many employees requesting leave, including paternity leave. When managers speak positively about leave for a father-to-be, new dads will be less nervous to step back from work. Managers who take parental leave themselves send a clear message that time away won’t be penalized.
Practical Steps for Better Paternity Leave
Paternity leave policies are usually straightforward. But managing them can get a little complicated. Below, we take you through a few best practices that will make managing your organization’s paternity or parental leave policy as efficient and effective as possible.
Train Your Managers
When employees need to ask for time off, about half of them will go to their managers, according to AbsenceSoft research. That means your managers need to know how to respond in a way that’s supportive and compliant. Unfortunately, some managers lack this training. Only 70% of employers train managers routinely. Nearly a third of organizations rely on onboarding alone or offer no training at all.
When one of your employees is expecting a new baby, your managers should understand the basics of paternity leave coverage to give the employee an idea of the benefits they’ll receive. The manager should also know to send the employee to HR. That way, everyone can get an accurate picture of how long the employee will be out of office.
Communicate Your Policies Clearly
Somewhere in your company’s employee handbook, or deep within its intranet, there’s a policy spelling out the particulars of parental leave in HR lingo. Some employees will know these resources exist and will take the time to understand them. Others will not.
If your organization has invested in parental leave, take the time to educate employees about their benefits. Provide information in multiple formats: handouts, townhalls, emails. It’s also worth including information about paid leave on your recruiting materials. Eighty-six percent of employees say they are more likely to apply for a job when paid leave benefits are clearly listed, according to AbsenceSoft research.
Avoid Pay Errors at All Costs
Pay errors are a top driver of poor leave experiences. Nearly a third of employees in an AbsenceSoft survey said pay miscalculations contributed to their negative leave experience. The coordination between state-paid and employer-paid benefits is one of the messiest and error-prone processes in leave administration. To avoid mistakes, use leave software designed to handle payroll calculations.
Focus on Consistency
In leave administration, consistency is important to both company culture and compliance. Follow clear, well-documented processes to protect your employees and your organization. These will ensure you manage parental leave policies with fairness. Any inconsistencies can signal personal preference to employees, and they can create legal exposure over time.
Simplify Paternity Leave with AbsenceSoft
When you make it easy for parents to take leave, you show your employees that you value their personal lives. Employees will step away from work certain they won’t be punished for their time off, badgered while they bond with their babies, or hurried back to the office.
To create this culture, however, employers need to administer parental leave accurately and without major mistakes. That’s easier said than done. The parental leave landscape grows more complicated every year. States and localities launch new programs, legislators change existing laws, and generous company policies raise employee expectations.
Manual processes can’t keep up in this environment. With leave management software like AbsenceSoft, employers can simplify their approach to parental leave. The AbsenceSoft Compliance Engine™ supports over 200 federal and state leave laws, including those covering paternity leave. Our system also makes room for custom policies and pay coordination, all in one place.
If you’d like to learn more about how AbsenceSoft can optimize your leave management program, book a demo today.
FAQ on Paternity Leave
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Paternity leave is time off for fathers and other non-birthing parents who have recently welcomed a child. The FMLA provides unpaid, job protected leave, which eligible employees can take upon the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child. The FMLA does not refer to the leave it provides as paternity leave. But fathers and non-birthing parents can use the FMLA to take time off to bond with a new child.
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Whether paternity leave is paid depends entirely on the policy providing it. The FMLA provides unpaid, job protected leave that eligible employees can take upon the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child. State and local laws allow employees to take leave for the same reasons while being partially or fully compensated. Many employers provide paid parental leave policies to attract and retain talent.
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The length of someone’s paternity leave depends on the policy providing it. The FMLA provides 12 weeks of unpaid, job protected leave that eligible employees can use to bond with a new child. Leaves provided by state laws vary in length. California Paid Family Leave, for instance, provides short-term wage replacement benefits to eligible workers taking family leave for up to eight weeks in a 12-month period. The Minnesota Paid Leave program offers up to 20 weeks of wage replacement. Similarly, employer policies vary vastly, with some lasting several months to a year.