Fathers take most parental leave in July and August

Fathers take parental leave most often in July and August, while the overall share of leave taken by men has continued to rise, Yle reports.

Matti Muhli, 38, is spending the summer at a lakeside cottage in Asikkala with his nine-month-old son, Ilmari. Muhli has been on annual leave from his specialist job since the beginning of July, and will soon move directly into parental leave.

“Cottage life was important to us even before our child was born. Ilmari has now become part of our cottage tradition, and we are learning to do it in a slightly different way,” Muhli says.

Muhli and his partner, Leea Rautanen-Muhli, arranged more than two months of shared family leave this summer by alternating parental leave and annual leave. Muhli will continue his parental leave until December, while Rautanen-Muhli returns to work in September.

July and August are the most popular months for fathers

In recent years, the largest number of men on parental leave has been recorded in July and August. The share of men receiving parental allowances from Kela has also been slightly higher during those months than at other times of the year. The pattern has been visible since at least 2020.

Last August, more than 18,000 men were receiving parental allowance, accounting for 33 percent of all recipients. The lowest figure was recorded in March, when just under 13,000 men received the allowance and their share was 26 percent.

There is no similar summer peak or drop in parental leave among women. Women still take parental leave more often and for longer periods than men, which Kela says evens out monthly differences.

Several factors may affect the timing

Anneli Miettinen, Kela’s head of research, says there are several possible reasons why fathers’ parental leave is more popular in summer.

Families may want to spend time together during the summer, while the start of early childhood education or the situation at a parent’s workplace may also affect the timing.

“Many parents want their child to start early childhood education in August or September. Fathers may use parental leave as an extension of the mother’s leave, allowing it to continue into the autumn months,” Miettinen says.

The number of babies born in summer may also contribute to the pattern. According to Statistics Finland, July and August have been among the busiest birth months throughout the 2000s. Fathers often take parental leave around the time of their child’s birth.

Satu Helske, a sociology docent at the University of Turku, says fathers may also schedule their parental leave in ways they consider suitable for their employers. However, there is no research showing whether this specifically affects parental leave taken during the summer.

“It is known, however, that men in many workplaces try to schedule their leave so that it causes less inconvenience for their employers,” Helske says.

Yle asked fathers on parental leave why they were taking leave during the summer and received around 60 responses. Many said they wanted to spend time together as a family by arranging the parents’ holidays and parental leave to overlap.

Other reasons included that taking leave in summer felt natural from a work perspective, that the child’s daycare was closed, or that summer simply happened to coincide with the father’s parental leave.

Men accounted for 23 percent of parental allowance days last year, compared with just over 10 percent five years earlier.