Government Proposes Six Months of Paid Maternity Leave
A proposed amendment to reproductive health laws would expand paid maternity leave to six months and paternity leave to 42 days across public and private sectors.
The government has registered an amendment bill in parliament to extend paid maternity leave to six months for formal sector workers, up from the current statutory guarantee of 98 days.
Under the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights (First Amendment) Bill 2083, female workers across public, non-governmental, and private entities would be entitled to six months of fully paid maternity leave before and after childbirth, Nagarik News reported. Paternity leave for male employees would also increase from 15 days to 42 days.
Health and Food Safety Minister Nisha Mehta presented the bill during theoretical discussions in the House of Representatives, calling the extension an investment in long-term human capital rather than a discretionary worker perk. Mehta argued that adequate recovery time for mothers is vital for newborn nutrition, exclusive breastfeeding, and long-term public productivity, stressing that private healthcare facilities and businesses must provide equal protections.
Public health specialists have welcomed the reform. According to a report by the state-run news agency RSS carried in both Nagarik News and Gorkhapatra, Dr. Gauri Pradhan Shrestha, chief of the Maternal and Newborn Health Section under the Family Welfare Division, noted that breast milk serves as an infant's first vaccine against illness. Shrestha pointed to findings from the Nepal Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2024–25, which revealed that only seven out of ten infants under six months are exclusively breastfed, and fewer than four in ten begin breastfeeding within their first hour of life.
Alongside infant health goals, demographic pressures are driving the legislative shift. As BBC News Nepali reported, the proposal forms part of a wider policy response to Nepal's plummeting birth rate. Census figures show the country's annual population growth rate dropped by roughly 31 percent in a decade, tumbling from 1.35 percent in 2011 to 0.92 percent in 2021. Padman Prasad Khatiwada, an associate professor of population studies at Tribhuvan University, told BBC News Nepali that the bill reflects an emerging state strategy to avert negative population growth, similar to pro-natalist incentives introduced across the region.
The draft legislation also seeks to tighten accountability across the healthcare system. Following public outcry after a pregnant woman in Saptari delivered outside a hospital on the pavement after being turned away, the amendment strictly bars medical facilities from refusing maternity care over financial distress or other pretexts, BBC News Nepali reported. Violators could face up to six months of imprisonment or fines up to Rs 50,000 under existing statutory penalties. In parallel, the health ministry has introduced a companion bill to restrict commercial breast milk substitutes and regulate infant food products.