Minister plans group to propose parental leave changes
Thursday 22nd October 2026 on 22:45 in
Iceland
Social and Housing Affairs Minister Ragnar Þór Ingólfsson says there has been no change in policy on giving parents more flexibility to divide parental leave, and that a working group will propose further changes. The comments came in parliament, and were reported by mbl.is.
Responding to a question from Centre Party MP Snorri Másson during an unscheduled question session, Ragnar said the cost of changes had been a key obstacle. Snorri criticised the current system and said the minister had not clearly stated whether he intended to give parents more freedom to share leave.
Parents are entitled to a total of 12 months of leave, with six months allocated to each parent. Each can transfer six weeks to the other, allowing one parent to take seven and a half months and the other four and a half.
Snorri said many families could not organise their leave around that division. As a result, some parents spent less time with their child and could miss out on millions of króna in payments. He argued that restricting how families divide leave was not a matter of women’s freedom.
Snorri recalled asking former minister Inga Sæland about the issue in November, saying she had been receptive to giving families more flexibility. Ragnar said the policy remained unchanged. He added that the ministry was also considering issues affecting parents whose children are born close together, as well as income thresholds for parents of premature babies.
Ragnar cited changes made to the parental leave system in recent years, including extensions to parental and bereavement leave, payments to parents when pregnancy-related illness affects them, and an increase in the maximum payment. He said the higher maximum had led fathers to take leave much more often than before, and that the system was under regular review.
Snorri disputed the emphasis on cost, saying it was bleak to treat it as a burden when more families used their full entitlement. He also said a working group was not needed to implement the changes and criticised the reference period used to calculate parental leave payments, arguing it could encourage parents to leave longer gaps between children.