In the last decade, paternity leave has been updated almost constantly. Until 2016, Social Security only covered 13 working days for fathers, extendable to 15. Since then, however, the coverage of the leave has been continuously expanded, first increasing to four weeks in 2017 and, a year later, to five. Furthermore, in 2019 it was approved to progressively equalize the leave for both parents in three phases: the fathers' leave increased that same year to 8 weeks, in 2020 it was extended to 12 and, finally, in 2021 it became comparable to that of mothers, which at that time was 16 weeks. Currently, birth leave is up to 19 paid weeks per parent.

Those who have become parents in recent weeks should know that the parental leave and childcare leave have undergone changes this September. Each parent will have three more weeks of paid leave (one for birth, adoption, or foster care, and the other two for childcare), while for single-parent families, the measure will be six weeks (two for birth and four for childcare). The measures were approved by the Congress of Deputies this month and came into effect on September 11. All parliamentary groups except Vox, which abstained, approved them.