Facebook's Zuckerberg Takes Way More Paternity Leave Than Hong Kong Dads
Local fathers get three days under the law.
Facebook has just expanded its fourth-month parental leave policy to all of their employees around the world, after Netflix, also a U.S.-based company, announced its unlimited parental leave policy.
The reason? Tom Stocky, Facebook's Vice President of Search, said at the end of his 2013 leave that it’s "good for gender equality in the workplace and it's good for families with fathers."
Hong Kong implemented statutory paternity leave on February 27 this year. The leave is three days long—and salary is pro-rated.
Civil servants have it a little better: a five-working-day leave that was implemented in April 2012.
A study published in the American Economic Review has shown that male employees in Norway are 11 percent more likely to take paternity leave if they see their colleagues take it. If they see a supervisor do it, they'll be even more likely to take their leave.
Since paternity in Hong Kong is still so new, there aren't any reliable statistics to show if it's popular with working fathers yet. Still, Hong Kong would need to push out up to 20 babies, back-to-back, just to get the two months of leave that Facebook's Zuckerberg is taking.
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