JBS Vol 20. Num 1. 2018 - Maternal and Paternal Leave Policies in Bangladesh: Scope for Improvement

In a highly populated, developing country like Bangladesh, more women are entering the workplace each year. However, they are often disadvantaged due to lack of adequate maternity leave provisions that leaves them having to shoulder most of the child rearing responsibilities, especially as the fathers don’t stay home and also because of lack of paid paternity or parental leaves. Social norms and expectations in a patriarchal society lead women to shoulder the main responsibilities of parenting, at least in terms of time given to the child. This review paper, based on secondary research and literature review of academic writings, aims to discover the prospects of improvement (if any) on this subject. It finds that though the length of maternity leave has increased by a month to a total of four months since 2008 (and for up to 6 months for female government servants), it only applies to certain categories of female employees and does not others (e.g. female private sector managerial employees). It also finds that there is no paternal or parental leave and looks into its implications while suggesting areas for future research.