How much maternity, paternity and solo parent leave am I entitled to?

Why

The 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law, RA 11210, replaced the old 60-and-78-day scheme in 2019 and changed the shape of the benefit as much as its length. Maternity leave is now 105 days with full pay for live childbirth, regardless of whether the delivery was normal or by caesarean section, with an additional 15 days for a qualified solo parent under RA 8972, bringing that total to 120. A miscarriage or emergency termination of pregnancy, including a stillbirth, carries 60 days with full pay. An employee may also extend by 30 days without pay, provided she gives her employer written notice at least 45 days before the end of her leave.

Coverage is deliberately wide. The benefit belongs to all female workers regardless of civil status, the legitimacy of the child, or the nature of their employment, and it reaches the private and public sectors, the informal economy, voluntary SSS contributors and national athletes. The old limit of four deliveries is gone: the leave is granted for every instance of pregnancy, miscarriage or emergency termination.

Seven of the 105 days may be allocated to the child's father, whether or not he is married to the mother. Where the father is absent, deceased, or incapacitated, those days may go instead to an alternate caregiver, meaning a relative within the fourth degree of consanguinity or the current partner sharing the same household. This allocation is separate from paternity leave, so a married father can combine both.

Paternity leave itself comes from RA 8187 and has not changed: seven days with full pay for the first four deliveries of the legitimate spouse with whom he is cohabiting. It is limited to married employees, which is why the transferable days under RA 11210 matter so much for unmarried fathers, who otherwise have no statutory leave of their own.

How the money moves in the private sector confuses people. The SSS pays the maternity benefit based on your contributions, and the employer pays the salary differential, which is the gap between your full pay and what SSS advances, so that the leave is genuinely full pay. Some employers are exempt from the differential, including retail and service establishments regularly employing not more than ten workers, registered barangay micro business enterprises, employers already providing an equivalent or better benefit, and those certified as distressed. The SSS side requires that you file a maternity notification and meet the contribution requirement, which is the step most often missed.

Two further entitlements sit alongside these. Parental leave for solo parents under RA 8972, as amended by the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Act RA 11861, gives seven working days of leave a year to a qualified solo parent with a Solo Parent Identification Card. And the Magna Carta of Women, RA 9710, grants a special leave of up to two months with full pay following surgery caused by gynaecological disorders, for employees who have rendered at least six months of continuous aggregate service in the last twelve months.

Finally, the protective rules. Maternity leave is not a resignation and not a break in service, and dismissal or discrimination on the ground of pregnancy is prohibited. Article 135 of the Labor Code makes it unlawful to discharge a woman on account of her pregnancy or while she is on leave, and RA 9710 backs that with its own remedies.

What to do

• File the SSS maternity notification through your employer as early in the pregnancy as you can, and confirm your contribution record separately. The benefit is delayed far more often by this step than by anything else.
• Decide early whether to allocate up to seven days to the father or an alternate caregiver, and put the allocation in writing to your employer.
• If you intend to take the extra 30 days without pay, give written notice at least 45 days before your leave ends.
• Check your payslip for the salary differential. If your employer paid only what SSS advanced, ask whether it is claiming one of the statutory exemptions, and which.
• Solo parents should secure a Solo Parent Identification Card from the city or municipal social welfare office. It is what unlocks both the extra 15 days and the annual seven-day parental leave.
• If you were dismissed, demoted or passed over because of the pregnancy or the leave, that is a separate and stronger claim. Raise it with DOLE under SEnA or file with the NLRC.

The law behind this