Caregiving is still seen as a woman’s responsibility and most workspace policies appreciate female domesticity.
The lack of paternity leaves, creates a starkly different domestic and public sphere, the domestic being the one ‘men don’t usually engage with’. 

Could the government pass the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016, a long overdue proposal? It was finally tabled in the Rajya Sabha on August 11 last year. The proposal updated the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, and stated that mothers of newborns would be entitled to maternity leave of 26 weeks, increased from 12 weeks. The second […]

A close friend of mine… let me just call her my little pixie… said she was going to tell the partners at the young startup she works at that they needed to institutionalise an optional day off for women on the first day of their cycle. After working in the system for 15 years, and […]

Shachi Irde and Aparna Athreya examine the the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016, and point out the good and bad

For the first time, maternity benefits will be available to adoptive mothers and ‘commissioning’ mothers