Single Parents Should Get as Much Paid Leave as Couples, Spanish Court Rules

Single parents in Spain can request the same total amount of paid parental leave that couples are entitled to, a regional court has ruled, in a case that could be a game changer for the large number of one-parent families in the country.

The decision, by a court in the southeastern region of Murcia this month, is the first to stem from a November ruling by Spain’s constitutional court that barred discrimination against children born into single-parent families.

“The duration and intensity of the need for care and attention of a newborn is the same regardless of the family model into which they were born,” the constitutional court wrote in its decision, which the regional court cited.

In practice, it means that solo parents can request the full amount of paid leave that Spanish couples are entitled to — six weeks of mandatory leave that must be taken together, plus an additional 10 for each parent, a total of 16 weeks per parent. For a single person serving as both parents, that adds up to 32 weeks of paid leave, according to the regional court’s ruling.

Carla Vall, a Barcelona-based lawyer who is an expert on gender, said that new parents in other parts of Spain could cite the Murcia court’s decision in applying for the benefit. “Now this doctrine means that the rest of the courts are going to adopt this reading of rights,” she said in a telephone interview.

Pablo Bustinduy, the social rights minister, described the decision as “excellent news and a victory for civil society after years of struggle and demands.”