Paternity leave is one of the crucial aspects of employment relations that fosters paternal involvement in family life and raising children. Contrary to the importance of paternity leave in our modern societies, laws can be promulgated on wrong perceptions that women must stay at home and take care of the household and children, while men are obliged to work to provide for their families. The current reality of life calls for a paradigm shift in traditional gender roles of men and women that both are equal and have become career- and family-orientated. In many democratic societies, constitutionally entrenched rights prohibit unfair discrimination based on sex or gender. However, labour laws in some jurisdictions do not expressly provide for paternity leave for working fathers the way women are given a reasonable period to take maternity leave for the caring of their newborn babies. This warrants a debate on whether excluding paternity leave in laws and policies aligns with constitutional values. We investigate how existing paternity legislation is regulated and the impact that failure to provide paternity leave has on the children. Paternity leave in South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania is discussed within an international, regional, and national legal framework and compared with the Western countries of Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The article concludes that effective measures and policies are essential in Africa to dismantle traditional gender stereotypes and promote equal roles in the workplace.
Ndimurwimo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.