Ireland’s paternity leave: sluggish benefit take-up and occupational inequalities

Figures & data

Table 1. Paternity benefit policy.

Eligibility	Required social contributions: Employee 39 weeks, self-employed 52 weeks
Duration	2 weeks
Flexibility	Up to 6 months after birth, but in consecutive weeks
Rate	Weekly flat rate 1 Sep 2016 €230 13 Mar 2017 €235 26 Mar 2018 €240 25 Mar 2019 €245
Occupational top-ups	Public employees: 100% of wage Private employees: 37% of companies offer top-ups, mostly 100% of wage

Source: author’s summary (Government of Ireland, 2016).

Table 2. Percentage of private companies offering occupational top-ups.

	2016	2020
Total	37%	52%
Size
<50 employees	24%	40%
500 + employees	76%	71%
Ownership
Irish-owned	25%	42%
Foreign-owned	55%	61%
N	373	370
Employees	67,224	100,851

Source: Ibec Research Unit (2016, 2020b), not all available categories are reported.

Figure 1. Paternity Benefit take-up rates by quarter.

Source: (CSO, 2019; 2020, table 5; DEASP, 2018; DSP, 2021; Eurostat, 2021). Notes: own calculations see A.1. Crude rate = claimants / number of births. Adjusted rate = claimants / (employment rate * number of births). Eligibility rate = eligible fathers are the reversed non-take-up rate. Target population are male workers with sufficient social insurance record aged 15-44. Gender rate = paternity claimants / maternity claimants. *Q4 2016 includes September claimants. ^ rate refers to annual data.

Figure 2. Variability of take-up by industrial activity, eligibility rate.

Source: own calculations, 14 sectors considered (CSO, 2020).

Figure 3. Age distribution of claimants and fathers at birth of child, 2017.

Source: (CSO, 2018a; DEASP, 2018) Notes: Own calculation. Paternal age: Fathers age unknown not displayed (3%), N=62,053. Claimants: recipients on 31 Dec 2017, N=875, No claimants under 20 and 55+ reported. Value label shows percentage point difference between claimants and paternal age.

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DEASP. (2018). Paternity benefit statistics 2016-2018. Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. Retrieved 11/03/2019 from https://www.welfare.ie/en/downloads/Paternity-Benefit-Statistics-2018.pdf.

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DSP. (2021). Quarter 1 2021. Quarterly Statistical Report, 1(1), www.gov.ie/dsp/statistics.

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Eurostat. (2021). Employment rates by sex, age and educational attainment level (%) [lfsq_ergaed]. The Publications Office of the European Union. Retrieved 20.03.2019 from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat.

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Data availability statement

Almost all data used is publicly available and all sources and indicators are detailed in the supplementary data file. Moreover, the data table in A.1 contains the raw data and derived indicators for Figure 1. The Ibec reports used are only accessible to members and to researchers on request and, therefore, the data cannot be shared.