South Africa introduced a new amendment to the parental leave policy in October 2025. The aim was to provide equitable rights for all parents. Noreth Muller-Kluits, a disability researcher and social worker by training, examines the policy as it affects people living with disabilities. Her recent work includes formulating a guide to support reproductive healthcare for women with disabilities.
What’s in South Africa’s new parental leave policy?
The Constitutional Court of South Africa’s decision on parental leave in October 2025 redefined the requirements. The ruling found that South Africa’s long-standing parental leave structure reflected outdated gender roles.
The declaration of invalidity was suspended for three years to allow Parliament to amend the law. An interim interpretation has been applied since October 2025 which is currently binding on employers.
All parents now have a shared total parental leave entitlement of four months and 10 days. There’s no sub-categorisation of maternity, paternity, adoption, or surrogacy.
The proposed reforms aim to align more closely with those of other countries which provide flexible parental leave where parents share several months equally.
Until the law is amended, South Africans will live under an interim system.
The following changes currently apply to the parental leave structure:
All parents are collectively entitled to four months and 10 days of parental leave, which they can share according to their choice.
In cases where both parents are employed, they must agree on how the leave will be shared. If they cannot agree, it will be split as closely as possible to half of four months and 10 days.
Birth mothers must still observe the mandatory six-week post-birth recovery period (unless medically certified to return earlier).
Workers may take maternity leave one month before their due date, or as agreed or required for health reasons. Workers may not go back to work within six weeks after the birth unless their doctor or midwife says it is safe. This is based on Section 25 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. Those six weeks form part of the overall four-month leave.
What’s missing from it in relation to people with disabilities?
The policy amendment has been applauded for taking a step towards workplace equality. But it still raises some concerns in relation to people with disabilities.
The amendment intends to create equality for all parents, including fathers and those who adopt or welcome a child through surrogacy. While equality and equity are often used interchangeably, they are different in their implementation.
Equality generally refers to giving everyone the same resources and opportunities. Equity recognises people’s different circumstances and allocates resources and opportunities accordingly. This is to ensure an equal outcome with the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people.
People with disabilities have been marginalised in the past and continue to face discrimination and stigmatisation. Modern definitions of disability have acknowledged that it centres on the interaction between a person’s condition and their environment. The South African constitution and the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities state that all citizens, including all persons with disabilities, should be seen as equal citizens with equal participation in society, including becoming parents and having families.
The amendments fall short in ensuring equity in two ways, including for people living with disabilities.
Firstly, where no agreement can be made about sharing the leave, birthing mothers are at risk of only receiving two months and five days’ parental leave, regardless of their specific needs, as a default equal share.
Currently, mothers are allowed their designated six-week recovery period and the rest of the leave is a shared entitlement. Previously, most mothers had their four months fixed. However, now the only fixed part is the first six weeks and thereafter it can be shared.
This leads to the second concern. In relationships where women don’t have autonomy, they will not be able to advocate for their need to have full leave to recover post-birth but would be vulnerable to having to share this leave.
Many women face intimate partner violence. Studies have found that women with disabilities often have a higher risk of experiencing this.
Women who may be experiencing such violence with minimal decision-making autonomy may now be at risk of having their leave reduced while recovering after birth. In the situation where a woman is not able to voice her specific needs and her partner expects an equal share of the leave, regardless of their parenting responsibilities, she might have to split her leave with her partner. She might not get the appropriate leave required to recover after birth and balance caregiving responsibilities.
What are the answers?
Recently, along with colleagues from the disability and reproductive health sectors, we created a consensus framework on reproductive healthcare support for women with disabilities.
We highlighted the importance of partner and family support for women with disabilities. They are often the birthing parent and primary caregiver.
Women with disabilities, like others, require physical and emotional support as they take on the new role.
Specific support needs may include:
alternative infant feeding techniques
managing any other health conditions that they might have
making their environment more accessible, such as lowering changing tables.
The framework shows the importance of acknowledging the different cultural and family dynamics when supporting mothers with disabilities.
Like all new mothers, women with disabilities will need support in their role as caregivers. Acknowledging the specific needs they may have is important in ensuring they receive the appropriate parental leave and additional support.
How can these gaps be filled?
The policy should be further amended to ensure that everyone receives the same opportunity for parental leave, according to their specific caregiving need, without reducing the total amount of parental leave available.
Originally, women could have four months of parental leave and their partner had limited access to parental leave. The new amendment has given the parents the opportunity to split the leave between them. The concern is if there is no fair agreement on how to split this, women may now face a reduction in their leave from four months to two months as a default split in half of total leave available.
A step towards equity for all would be to allow both parents to apply for the four months of leave, depending on their caregiving needs. This way, the woman would not have the risk of reduced parental leave while recovering after birth when it could potentially be split into equal halfs. However, it would still allow different parental structures to have access to equitable parental leave.
Noreth Muller-Kluits does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
By Noreth Muller-Kluits, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Stellenbosch University
