Social Rights proposes that single-parent families can share the baby leave with relatives

The draft of the Family Law, which the Ministry of Social Rights wants to bring to the Council of Ministers in the first quarter of 2022, includes an important novelty for single-parent families: they will have two birth permits (as in the case of families with two parents) and they will be able to choose whether to take it whole or to share it with a partner or family member up to the second degree of consanguinity, as elDiario.es has learned. This is stated in the text that Social Rights sent a few days ago to the ministries that the text affects: the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Equality, Social Security and Inclusion, and the Ministry of Finance. It is the latter with which the Ione Belarra ministry foresees more difficulties, not only due to the budgetary part but also due to technical differences on permits.

The text proposes to extend the permits for birth and adoption to mothers and fathers from the current 16 weeks to 24 weeks. The proposal is to increase permits by two weeks each year from 2023. That would mean reaching 24 weeks in 2026. The cost of this measure is estimated at 360 million euros the first year.

In the case of single-parent families, they would have the same weeks of leave as those with two parents. These will be two permits that the mother may take continuously or one of them may be shared with another person with whom she lives or who is a relative up to the second degree of consanguinity.

That is, you can share it, for example, with a partner who is not the father or mother of the baby but with whom you live, or with a friend who is registered at the same address. Or with relatives who do not live together but who have up to a second degree of consanguinity or affinity: fathers, mothers, grandparents, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, in-laws, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law. These people will have to be working and have contributed. The cost of this measure would be about 290 million annually.

For months, several single-parent families have litigated in court to denounce discriminatory treatment on the understanding that their children enjoy less time of care than babies born to a couple. There are already several court rulings, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Galicia, Castilla y León, the Valencian Community, Euskadi or Catalunya, which support their argument and which rule that they are entitled to the same number of weeks per birth.

The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) also endorsed the measure, that allowed the accumulation of permits for a magistrate of Catalonia. Even the Minister of Social Security and Inclusion, Jose Luis Escrivá, recognized a few weeks ago that the difference in permits that single mothers have compared to couples is a "problem of equity" and promised to study it.

Universal benefit

The draft contains other novelties, such as a universal parenting income of one hundred euros per month per retail. The idea is that the first to collect it are the parents of boys and girls from 0 to 3 years old and then progressively expand it. In 2023, the first year of its implementation, it would cost 400 million euros. The idea of ​​Social Rights is that this benefit absorbs two that currently exist: the Childhood Supplement of the Minimum Living Income and the deduction for maternity in Personal Income Tax that mothers who return from their leave collect for two years.

Neither universal parenting income nor the expansion of birth permits entered into the Budgets that the PSOE and United We Can negotiated for 2022, so it is foreseeable that the text will generate debate within the Executive.

The rule that the ministry has drawn up also seeks to equalize the legal situation of married couples and de facto couples: both will have the right to a widow's pension and the latter may also make a joint declaration of income, a measure that would have a budgetary impact of 475 million euros.

In total, the expenditure during the first year of application of the rule would be 1525 million euros. The Family Law is one of the great bets of the Ministry of Social Rights for 2022. Included in the Government's coalition agreement, the draft of the regulation is now ready and sent. .