A Spanish court on Thursday ruled that a single mother is entitled to claim the same parental leave that would have been allocated to a partner, effectively doubling her time off.
The unnamed woman sought to receive an additional 16 weeks of parental leave – equivalent to what a partner would have been granted – alongside the 16 weeks she was entitled to after giving birth in January 2022 in the Murcia region.
Her initial request was rejected by social services, prompting her to take legal action.
Murcia’s high court ruled in her favour, granting her a total of 32 weeks of parental leave. The decision was based on the principle that all children should receive equal treatment, according to the ruling dated 9 January.
The court referenced a November decision by Spain’s Constitutional Court, which prohibited discrimination against children in single-parent families.
‘It seems indisputable that parents in single-parent families have — at least — the same reconciliation needs as parents in two-parent families,’ the Constitutional Court stated in its earlier ruling, which was cited in the high court’s judgment.
Denying a single parent the leave a partner would have been due gives children born into single-parent families ‘a substantially shorter period of parental care immediately after birth’, it said.
The consequences of this are ‘even more unjustified’ given statistics showing that children from single-parent households are at higher risk of poverty, it added.
The ruling is open to appeal.
While the woman will not be able to benefit from the extra parental leave now, since she gave birth three years ago, her lawyer told Spanish media that he hopes she will be financially compensated for the leave she was denied.
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