Chile: One-Year Parental Leave: A Struggle Gaining Support
HAVANA TIMES – In a country like Chile, where machismo and gender inequality are still deeply present in society, the recent citizen mobilization on August 11, 2025, in favor of the “One-Year Parental Leave” bill marks a precedent in the fight for childcare and shared parental responsibility.
That is why hundreds of people gathered in the streets across Chile to demand the approval of a bill that seeks to extend parental leave to 12 months for mothers and 30 days for fathers. This demand was accompanied by the delivery to La Moneda of a letter signed by 24,000 people, supported by organizations such as the CUT, Confusam, and the College of Midwives.
The aim is to expand the current five-and-a-half-month leave for mothers and barely five days for fathers—not only because it is tremendously insufficient, but also because it perpetuates a view in which childcare is almost exclusively a woman’s burden, thereby reproducing deep gender inequality.
This is what the demonstrators themselves—such as Susana Navarro, Aymara Guiñez, and Rocio Yevenes—have expressed, stating that the current five and a half months are not enough to ensure optimal care, and pointing out the contradiction between breastfeeding recommendations and the reality of parental leave that forces mothers to return to work prematurely. They also highlight the key role of fathers in a context of maternal vulnerability.
As for the bill, introduced in May 2024 by Deputy Patricio Rosas, it has made some progress: it has been approved by the Economic and Labor Committees and was sent to the floor by the Finance Committee in July. It now faces the challenge of obtaining presidential sponsorship and overcoming economic resistance from sectors that still fail to grasp its importance.
As Andrea Iturry, spokesperson and founder of the “Emergency Parental Leave and One-Year Parental Leave” movement, points out, congressional approval is crucial, as it ensures the healthy development of babies and fosters emotional bonds—essential for secure bonding—by allowing parents to be present during the most critical stages of infancy.
Moreover, this bill should be seen as an opportunity to rethink not only public policy but also gender relations. Extending paternity leave to 30 days, as the bill proposes, is a step toward a loving masculinity that embraces care as a shared responsibility. Its approval could become a catalyst for profound cultural change.
However, the road will not be easy, given the resistance from political and business sectors focused on the economic cost of the project, while ignoring its general welfare benefits, from reduced child healthcare expenses to increased paternal involvement and improved maternal job satisfaction. These factors show that care is not an expense, but an investment.
That said, the call is to continue raising awareness of this issue and to strengthen collective action toward the approval of one-year parental leave. This is not just a public policy, it is the building of a society that prioritizes life over economic interests, shared responsibility over individualism, and well-being over precariousness.
As a society, we must support this cause not only for today’s families but also for future generations, who deserve a fairer, more humane Chile, one that stops seeing everything in the short term and takes responsibility for fundamental demands in caring for life, which are increasingly gaining broad, cross-sector support.