If you’re expecting, here’s six things you need to know about SA’s amended parental leave in 2025. A landmark judgment in the Constitutional Court was delivered against the Minister of Employment and Labour. As such, SA’s amended parental leave opens up a new world for how we see parenthood, work and equality in Mzansi.
Previously, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) gave birth mothers four months of maternity leave. And other parents a token 10 days. Now, after the ruling on 3 October 2025 by Justice Tshiqi, both employed parents now share a total of four months and 10 days. Better still, it can be divided up as they choose.
SA’S AMENDED PARENTAL LEAVE IN 2025
Therefore, sections 25, 25A, 25B and 25C of the BCEA and the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) Act were deemed unconstitutional. This is because they discriminated between birth and non-birth parents. In turn, here’s what you need to know about the workings of SA’s amended parental leave:
- 1. If you are a single, or the only employed parent, you are entitled to four months of parental leave.
- 2. If both parents are employed, they now share a total of four months and 10 days.
- 3. This leave can be divided up as the parents choose. Provided each parent’s share is taken in a single block, either consecutively, concurrently or partly overlapping.
- 4. Birth mothers must still observe a mandatory six-week post-birth recovery period. However, the six weeks do form part of the overall four months.
- 5. Adoptive leave begins when the child is placed in a new home and/or when a court grants the adoption.
- 6. The previous ‘ten-day parental leave’ (section 25A) of BCEA is now deleted.
EQUALITY FOR MOTHERS AND FATHERS
Before SA’s amended parental leave, the law assumed that caregiving was exclusively the birth mother’s role. Therefore, fathers and partners were not deemed as equals. And the effect was gender discrimination between parents and seen as not in the best interests of the child. Ultimately, parental equality belongs in choices like who stays home when a child falls ill and who sacrifices their earnings for caregiving.
By law, employers are required to update workplace policies immediately to align with SA’s amended parental leave laws. These came into effective from the date of judgment – 3 October 2025 – and not at some arbitrary point in the future. The next step is for employers to see SA’s amended parental leave not as lost productivity. But rather as an investment in stable families, healthier workplaces and a more humane society.
What do you think of SA’s amended parental leave? Do you think it’s a step forward for parental equality in Mzansi? Let us know in the comments section below …
