Nine in ten new mothers taking time off work: study
Posted July 30, 2012 11:40 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA, ON (NEWS1130) – Nine in ten Canadian working mothers take time off once the child is born. In Quebec, that rate is almost 100 per cent because of a separate parental benefits program in that province.
Quebec had to be removed from the rest of the Statistics Canada data because of different standards and regulations. In addition to nearly every working mother taking time off, three quarters of men there took off work too.
The rest of Canada is a different story where only a quarter of working father stay home for an average of just 2.4 weeks. The average mother takes 44 weeks.
As for the one in 10 mothers who do not take time off, heading right back to work, the numbers showed three things: the mothers were more likely to be from a single-parent family, to have less education and make a lower income, compared to those who did take leave.
Also, mothers who reported having post-partum depression tended to take longer leave from work.
Self-employment factored in as well. Both mothers and fathers who were self-employed took shorter leaves, regardless of the child’s birth order, gender, the mother’s age, parental education and income.
