Leave Policy System in Russia: Is It Time to Change?

Abstract

As a demographic and family policy measure, the parental leave system is flexible in many countries. For example, parents can take full or partial leave, choose shorter leave with higher payments or vice versa; leave can be taken by other relatives of the child. In Russia, the labor legislation regulates only one of such flexible parameters—taking full or partial parental leave by not only the mother, but also the father or other relatives of the child. To study social attitudes towards the existing system of parental leave in Russia, we surveyed 506 male and 265 female employees of different organizations with and without children. To explore barriers in the system of the parental leave regulation, we carried out a content analysis of employees’ complaints published on the онлайнинспекция.рф website and analysed five cases of breaching parental leave regulations extracted from popular Russian mass media. Our results demonstrate discrepancies between the existing system of parental leave and respondents’ attitudes to its legal regulation. To address the problem, the system should be transformed to embrace flexibility. To foster the transformation, the government may promote conscious and responsible fatherhood and integrate the social institute of the labor market in the demographic policy.