A baby boy is wearing a blue shirt with word 'hi' on it
Image: Karl Tapales

Pinterest adds new parental benefits for employees globally

8 Dec 2021

The new and extended parental benefits include a minimum of 20 weeks’ parental leave, paid leave for pregnancy loss, and IVF and egg freezing benefits.

From 1 January 2022, Pinterest is introducing new and extended parental benefits for employees globally.

Pinterest employees will be offered a minimum of 20 weeks’ parental leave. This includes parents of newly adopted children, who were previously entitled to 12 weeks of parental leave.

Additionally, adoptive parents will receive monetary assistance of up to $10,000 or local equivalent, up from $5,000.

A new policy will also offer four weeks of paid leave to employees who experience a loss through miscarriage at any point in the pregnancy, while parents of newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit can take eight weeks’ paid leave.

Outside of parental leave, many companies have started to offer fertility benefits, especially in the US. Pinterest already offered IVF and egg freezing to its US employees and, from the start of 2022, this benefit will be rolled out globally.

Pinterest’s chief people officer, Christine Deputy, said the extension of parental benefits is “critical to foster a positive environment for working parents”.

“Parents deserve support and a balanced work environment at all stages of family planning and child care, especially in the midst of a public health crisis,” she said.

“People do their best work when they feel seen and supported in a workplace that’s inclusive and inspiring.”

The new global benefits are intended to complement the existing benefits already in place for Pinterest employees, such as one-to-one parental coaching, free breast milk shipments for business travelling and four weeks of paid Covid-related leave for reasons such as childcare or recovery for parents or caregivers.

There is no minimum amount of service required to avail of these benefits from the company, which has its European base in Dublin.

Legislation for parents

While companies are offering a variety of different benefits to support working parents, there have also been legislative changes in recent years.

In September 2019, legislation around parental leave in Ireland took effect extending the term of unpaid leave available for parents from 18 to 22 weeks for each eligible child, before further extending this to 26 weeks in September 2020.

Another change for parents in recent years was the Parent’s Leave and Benefit Bill, which came into effect in November 2019, providing two weeks of paid parental leave that can be taken during the first year after the birth or adoption of a child.

These changes followed an EU directive for work-life balance, a major aspect of which was its goal of encouraging greater equality in the amount of parental leave taken by men and women.

Further afield, there have been other changes to help support working parents. In Finland in 2020, there was an increase in the allowance of family leave from 11 and a half months to more than 14 months. Under this reform, both parents can receive an equal quota of 164 days of allowance – adding up to more than six months – and they will be able to transfer up to 69 days from their own allowance to the other parent.

Earlier this year, New Zealand’s government also approved legislation to provide three days of paid leave after a miscarriage or stillbirth without needing to use sick leave.

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Jenny Darmody
By Jenny Darmody

Jenny Darmody became the editor of Silicon Republic in 2023, having worked as the deputy editor since February 2020. When she’s not writing about the science and tech industry, she’s writing short stories and attempting novels. She continuously buys more books than she can read in a lifetime and pretty stationery is her kryptonite. She also believes seagulls to be the root of all evil and her baking is the stuff of legends.

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