Sarah Morris

speaker

81 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 27 Jul

Sarah Morris’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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Today with David McCullagh · Work first, family second? Maternity leave rights, are they enough? · 1 Jul 2026 podcast

You do have to meet some criteria.

You have to have paid into the state social security system.

But that is broadly it.

And if you've been lucky enough or unlucky enough to have twins, triplets –

you get more weeks for those babies.

And there's also single parents would get up to 32 weeks.

And then there would also be extra weeks if your baby is born prematurely or needs extra time in the hospital.

That's right.

This was a new measure that was progressively introduced over different governments and it's been very successful.

It's one of the reasons why when the Spanish system is compared to others, it's seen as producing the most equal outcome in the sense that 90% of dads take their paternity leave according to one 2023 study.

There is, you have to take the first amount of leave, the first six weeks, you have to take that after the birth of the baby.

And so parents take that simultaneously to bond with the baby in the early days.

And then the rest of those weeks can be taken off leave.

alternately or as it's seen fit by the parents.

One complaint which some of the experts have looking into the Spanish system is they say that if the current system does tend to turn dad into a man who looks after and helps his wife,

or partner, but doesn't actually, in many cases, take on the role of being a single carer, letting his partner go back to work.

We've only got one in five men doing that in Spain.

It's very interesting because if you look in the Spanish parks, you will see dads out and about with their push chairs.

And there's definitely been a generational shift.

It is true to say that in the private sector, one of the things which probably makes maternity and paternity leave more

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