Despite decades of progress, women still face many challenges to career development, and being a new mom hasn’t escaped the list. Each country establishes its own maternity leave policies — determining length, payment status, and associated benefits before and after giving birth — with employers sometimes altering those specifications within their companies. While the objective of maternity leave is to provide recovery time after childbirth, enable newborn care, and protect the mother’s employment status, its impact presents a complex paradox.

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Although maternity leave has encouraged more women to enter the labor market — especially in developing and emerging countries — it has simultaneously raised the cost of hiring female employees, causing a systemic discouragement of their employment. So the question begs: Is maternity leave truly supportive of women’s growth in the workplace?

Maternity leave in Egypt: The House’s Manpower Committee just recently approved a267-article bill in January of a revised labor law, of which Article 50 grants women four months of paid maternity leave, with a minimum of 45 days post-birth. Article 51 provides job security protections during that time, while breastfeeding mothers are entitled to two daily half-hour breaks for the first two years of childbirth. The Madbouly government aims to enact this legislation before the Parliament’s five-year session concludes in July.

A gesture of good faith: Margaret Azer, cassation lawyer and former secretary general of the National Council of Women (NCW), told Enterprise that this move promotes “a better work-life balance for working women,” lowering the entry barrier for a lot of aspiring workers who may fear “losing their jobs during pregnancy and childbirth.”

As of today, Egypt's current labor regulations are governed by Labor Law No. 12 of 2003. The comprehensive legislation currently entitles female employees to 90 days of paid maternity leave, applicable only after ten months of service with the same employer, and allows nursing mothers with the same two daily breaks for breastfeeding that will remain unchanged in the new draft law.

Global comparison: Several European countries offer substantially more generous provisions. Sweden offers 480 days of shared parental leave — 90 days at a fixed rate, and 390 at 80% salary. Bulgaria’s package is 410 days of paid maternity leave at 90% salary. Estonia offers 20 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, extendable to approximately 62 weeks of parental leave at a flat rate. The US pales in comparison — the Family and Medical Leave Act provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave, but most employees are ineligible.

Women in Egypt’s workforce by the numbers: More and more women have been entering the Egyptian labor force in recent decades, and as of 4Q 2024, women constitute 20.4% of Egypt’s labor market — 6.6 mn out of the 33.1 mn total workers in the country. As it stands, female unemployment is documented at 16.6%, compared to male unemployment at 3.9%.

Even just one additional day of maternity leave can increase women’s employment prospects: World Bank research that includes firm-level survey data from Egypt and other developing countries indicates that a conservative estimate of 2.08 percentage points is added to the proportion of female employees in a company with each log point increase in the duration of paid maternity leave. What does this mean? Extending paid maternity leave from 0 days to 410 days leads to a 12.5 percentage point increase in female workforce participation.

The child penalty: A group of economic researches branched from the London School of Economics’ Hub for Equal Representation in the Economy has studied how childbirth impacts women’s and men’s careers differently across the globe, finding in a 2024 study examining 134 nations that mothers are less likely to be employed than fathers a decade after their first child’s birth in nearly 85% of the countries studied.

But the hiring discrimination starts well before childbirth: Rim Wahba, a group human resources manager, acknowledges that hiring managers prefer women candidates that are unmarried, or have already had children to lessen the possibility of having to grant maternity leave. Wahba confirmed to Enterprise that during interviews, HR teams may inquire about a newly married woman’s childbearing plans: “We don’t want [to hire] someone that will need replacement after a few months of employment.”

Some of the most common cases dealt by the NCW included the unjust contract termination of female workers due to circumstances like pregnancy or marriage, and complaints from women about the lack of childcare facilities and flexible working hours at their place of employment, Azer told us.

Insufficient childcare support takes a toll not only on the mother’s physical and mental health, but also the child’s. Many women who resume work after maternity leave resort to formula feeding because they are unable to keep up with the demanding schedule of having to pump at the office and store the milk, says Nour Emam, femtech entrepreneur and co-founder of Daleela by Motherbeing. “All of these things are a huge mental and physical toll on working moms that are forced to go back to work,” she told Enterprise. Emam added that four months maternity leave period is way too short to provide mother and child with real benefits, “but here we are.”

Longer maternity leave improves child health and reduces infant mortality: Longer maternity leave was proven to contribute to lower infant and toddler mortality rates, due to allowing more time for maternal care, breastfeeding, and assessing and addressing childcare needs. “It does take a toll for the mother to be away from the child that long, especially if the child is not under the care of relatives or family,” Emam said. MENA countries were shown to provide fewer days of paid maternity leave compared to developed countries, and in order to equalize child mortality rates between the two regions, the study showed that paid maternity leave should be extended by 200 or more days.

Race, education, and economic status determine breastfeeding durations: The results of a global study have shown a positive relationship between the length of maternity leave and breastfeeding duration — therefore resulting in improved child nutrition. However, the findings differed when studies examined the relationship between maternity leave and breastfeeding based on the woman’s socioeconomic status. Data collected demonstrated that black women, women in less privileged positions, and women with less education are provided with shorter breastfeeding durations.

Only 14.1% of working women in Mansoura exclusively breastfeed their newborns: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the Mansoura District in 2023, which included working mothers attending health care facilities to vaccinate their infants aged 6 months, showed that the exclusive breastfeeding rate among the participants stood at 14.1%. The results highlighted an alarming need to extend maternity leave and provide “promoting workplace facilities” for working women in the district, and consequently, in Egypt as whole.

Supportive policies as a way out: The government’s Women's Empowerment Strategy 2030, which launched in 2023, aims to increase the rate of women's participation in the labor force from the initially reported 24.2% to 35% in 2030, and shrink the unemployment rate among women to 16% from an initial 24%. While we are well underway, Azer told us that “without supportive policies, women’s employment prospects are reduced, and their career progression is slowed down” regardless.

How can this be remedied? The former secretary general of the NCW suggested tax incentives or partial government subsidies as solutions for employers to cover maternity costs. Other potential solutions included flexible work arrangements — such as remote work or reduced workdays after returning from leave —, awareness campaigns to emphasize the importance of equal employment opportunities and prevent discrimination against childbearing women, and the development of career advancement policies to support women’s promotions.

Is it time for paternity leave in Egypt? As of today, the Egyptian labor law doesn’t offer paternity leave, and mainly focuses on the regulations governing maternity leave only. There is no clear indication of an introduction of mandatory paternity leave into the labor law, Azer explained, but there are ongoing demands from human rights organizations and civil society groups to establish a short paid leave for fathers to support women during childbirth and promote a more balanced distribution of family responsibilities.

What’s the holdup? The introduction of paternity leave into legislation may be on ice to focus on directly supporting working women rather than adding new obligations for private sector employers, Azer said. She explained that the existence of prevailing cultural attitudes in certain industries — that child-rearing responsibilities are still primarily seen as a mother’s role — also stand as an obstacle in the implication of a paternity leave policy.

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