Maternity leave statistics show a wide gap between access to leave, leave actually used, and the ability to remain employed after a first birth. In the United States, paid-leave use among first-time parents reached 49.1% for mothers and 50.1% for fathers in the 2014–2022 birth cohort. Canada reported that 74.5% of employed mothers with a child under 1 were on maternity or parental leave during an average month in 2022. Across OECD countries, average paid leave entitlements reached roughly 55 weeks in 2025.
Table of contents
- U.S. employer access to leave
- Leave used after a first birth
- Employment before and after a first birth
- Canada leave participation
- Canada benefit coverage and differences
- OECD paid-leave entitlements
U.S. employer access to leave
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) distinguishes employer-provided paid and unpaid family-leave benefits. These access measures can overlap: a worker may have both a paid plan and an unpaid plan. They describe benefit access, not necessarily leave taken.
In 1988, 33% of full-time workers in medium and large U.S. establishments participated in unpaid maternity leave, compared with 16% who participated in unpaid paternity leave. Paid access was much less common: 2% participated in paid maternity leave and 1% in paid paternity leave. BLS, “What data does the BLS publish on family leave?” reports these 1988 figures.
Access to family leave increased over later BLS observations, especially for unpaid leave. Among U.S. private-industry workers in small establishments, 2% had access to paid family leave in 1994, compared with 47% who had access to unpaid family leave. By 2005, the figures were 6% and 71%, respectively, and by 2007 they were 6% and 75%.
In establishments with 100 or more employees, 2% of private-industry workers had access to paid family leave in 1995, while 84% had access to unpaid family leave. By 2007, paid access had reached 10% and unpaid access 93%. State and local government workers had somewhat higher paid access in 2007: 15% had paid family leave and 93% had unpaid family leave.
| U.S. worker group and year | Paid family leave access | Unpaid family leave access |
|---|---|---|
| Private industry, small establishments, 1994 | 2% | 47% |
| Private industry, small establishments, 2007 | 6% | 75% |
| Private industry, establishments with 100+ employees, 1995 | 2% | 84% |
| Private industry, establishments with 100+ employees, 2007 | 10% | 93% |
| State and local government, 2007 | 15% | 93% |
The pattern is clear in these historical BLS observations: unpaid family-leave access was substantially more widespread than paid access, even as both measures rose in several groups between the 1990s and 2007.
Leave used after a first birth
The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) estimates focus on first-time biological parents who worked before the birth. The results measure leave used after the child was born, so they are different from employer access figures.
Among first-time mothers, 39.9% used some form of paid leave after a first birth before 1994. The share was 42.8% for births in 1994–2003, 43.8% for births in 2004–2013, and 49.1% for births in 2014–2022. Among first-time fathers, paid-leave use was about 18% before 1994, 27.1% in 1994–2003, 35.1% in 2004–2013, and 50.1% in 2014–2022.
| First-birth period | Mothers using paid leave | Fathers using paid leave |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1994 | 39.9% | About 18% |
| 1994–2003 | 42.8% | 27.1% |
| 2004–2013 | 43.8% | 35.1% |
| 2014–2022 | 49.1% | 50.1% |
For mothers, the available figures show paid-leave use rising by 9.2 percentage points between births before 1994 and births in 2014–2022. Fathers show a larger increase in the reported series, from about 18% to 50.1%, although the earliest figure is approximate.
Unpaid leave was also part of the experience for some first-time parents. Among first-time mothers with a birth before 1994, 25.4% took some form of unpaid leave; the share was 23.8% for births in 1994–2003. For first-time fathers with a birth in 2014–2022, 12.6% took unpaid leave.
These Census figures should not be read as a universal leave rate for all parents. They cover first-time biological parents who worked before the birth, and the birth-cohort periods are not single-year estimates. The Census report, “Parental Leave and Employment Patterns for First-Time Parents in the United States: 2022,” provides the source and methodology.
Employment before and after a first birth
Work status helps put leave statistics in context. In the 2022 SIPP estimates, about 60% of U.S. first-time mothers and roughly 78% of first-time fathers reported working during the pregnancy leading to the first birth. The estimates vary strongly by age. Among first-time mothers aged 30 or older at first birth, 73.9% worked leading up to the birth, compared with 28% of mothers under 18. Among first-time fathers aged 30 or older, about 80% worked leading up to the birth; among fathers under 18, the estimate was 60%.
Among first-time mothers who worked during pregnancy, 13.7% reported taking no leave after the first birth. The same conditional group also supplies the post-birth employment comparisons: 84.3% of White mothers worked after the first birth, while 88.5% of Black-alone mothers worked after the first birth.
The Census estimates also show a difference in work during pregnancy by ethnicity. Among first-time mothers, 44.9% of Hispanic mothers worked during pregnancy, compared with 64.2% of non-Hispanic mothers. Because the post-birth work figures are conditional on working during pregnancy, they should not be compared with the overall work-before-birth percentages as though they measured the same population.
Canada leave participation
Statistics Canada combines maternity and parental leave in its Labour Force Survey indicator and reports annual averages. During an average month in 1997, 41.5% of employed mothers aged 20–49 with a child under 1 were on maternity or parental leave. The share rose to 77.3% in 2007 and was 74.5% in 2022.
The corresponding 2022 share for employed fathers aged 20–49 with a child under 1 was 7.3%. Statistics Canada reports that the average share of employed fathers with a child under 1 on parental leave stayed below 9% from 2007 through 2022. Self-employed women had a lower participation rate than employed mothers overall in the available comparison: 7.2% were on maternity or parental leave in 1997, rising to 22.0% in 2022.
Another Statistics Canada source covers paid workers or self-employed parents who worked before a birth or adoption from 2012 to 2017. During that period, 88% of mothers took maternity leave, parental leave, or both. Among fathers, 46% took paternity leave, parental leave, or both, while 42% used annual vacation leave after a birth or adoption. More than 80% of mothers who took maternity or parental leave returned to work within 27–52 weeks after a birth or adoption. For fathers who took paternity or parental leave, 48% used it for 5 weeks or less.
The same source estimated that 2.3 million Canadian paid workers or self-employed parents—80%—took paid or unpaid leave after a birth or adoption in 2012–2017. Statistics Canada, “Parental leave, 1997 to 2022,” and “Employment Insurance Coverage Survey, 2022,” provide the relevant estimates.
Canada benefit coverage and differences
In 2022, 81.9% of surveyed Canadian parents with a child aged 18 months or younger had insurable employment before the birth or adoption. Among parents with insurable employment, 94.2% had claimed and received maternity or parental benefits.
Coverage differed by location. Among insured parents in Quebec, 99.3% received maternity or parental benefits in 2022, compared with 92.4% of insured parents outside Quebec. Spousal or partner participation showed a wider gap: 92.9% of spouses or partners in Quebec had claimed or intended to claim paternity or parental benefits, compared with 31.3% in the other Canadian provinces. Across all surveyed spouses or partners, the figure was 46.6%.
The Labour Force Survey indicator also varied by province in 2022. Among employed mothers with a child under 1, 78.4% in Nova Scotia were on maternity or parental leave, the highest provincial share reported. British Columbia had the lowest reported share at 68.6%.
These Canadian measures are not interchangeable. The Labour Force Survey reports annual-average participation among employed people, while the Employment Insurance Coverage Survey reports benefit coverage and intentions among surveyed parents. The combined maternity-and-parental terminology also means the measures do not isolate maternity leave alone.
OECD paid-leave entitlements
OECD figures describe national or federal paid-leave entitlements available to mothers, not necessarily the leave that parents actually take. Across OECD countries, mothers had an average of 16 weeks of paid maternity, parental, and home-care leave available in 1970. The average was about 43 weeks in 1995 and roughly 55 weeks in 2025.
In 2025, mothers in Czechia, Finland, and the Slovak Republic could receive more than three years of paid leave under national entitlements. At the other end of the historical comparison, only five OECD countries—Austria, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, and Sweden—offered mothers less total paid leave in 2025 than in either 1970 or 1995.
Actual use by fathers remains more limited in many countries. In about half of OECD countries with recent data, fewer than 50 men claimed publicly administered paid parental leave per 100 live births. Across OECD countries with available data, men represented about 33% of users or recipients of publicly administered parental-leave benefits on average. The OECD notes country-specific comparability limits for this use indicator, and the latest observation is from 2024 or the latest available year rather than one identical year for every country.
OECD, “PF2.5. Trends in parental leave policies since 1970,” covers entitlement trends, while “PF2.2. Use of childbirth-related leave,” covers publicly administered paid-benefit use. Together, the measures show why entitlement length and actual participation should be treated as separate maternity leave statistics.