Paid maternity leave is emerging as one of the clearest signs that employee benefits are being redesigned under cost and compliance pressure.
Remchannel’s latest Employee Benefits Guide shows that the share of employers offering four months’ fully paid maternity leave fell from 58.5% in 2023 to 41.7% in 2025.
“What we are seeing is employers adjusting to a leave framework that has become broader since the Constitutional Court endorsed shared parental leave,” says Lindiwe Sebesho, Managing Director of Remchannel. “The implication is that leave design can no longer be centred on historic maternity benefits alone. Employers now have to think more carefully about how the benefits package for a wider employee group balances cost and the retention of female talent.”
Employees are entitled to parental leave under the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which provides for four consecutive months and ten days of parental leave to be shared by the parents as they choose. What is changing is the extent to which employers choose to make that leave fully paid, partially paid or unpaid.
Sebesho says this shift may be especially significant in sectors where workforce planning has historically been built around male-dominated employee bases, because the extension of equal caregiving rights to men and women changes the liability profile more materially than many employers may have anticipated.
“There is a clear move away from standardised paid leave models toward a mix of fully paid, partially paid and unpaid benefits layered over statutory leave entitlements,” says Sebesho. “Employers are now reassessing paid leave more deliberately because shared parental leave has expanded, changing the cost and workforce planning assumptions behind the benefit.”
The package now has to work harder
This is reflected in the April 2026 Remchannel Salary and Wage Movements Survey, which shows that while employers are still funding pay increases, they are doing so in a more controlled and cost-conscious way. More than 70% of organisations now structure pay for senior roles on a total guaranteed package basis, pointing to tighter control over remuneration design and cost, while offering guided flexibility.
“For employers, the shift has implications beyond leave policy itself. Maternity benefits are one of the clearest signals women receive about how an organisation will support caregiving, career continuity and financial security at a critical life stage,” says Sebesho.
As those benefits are reworked, the competitive question becomes what else in the total package needs to be strengthened if employers want to attract and retain female talent, particularly in male-dominated sectors that may need to diversity their talent profile.
“Parental leave does not sit in isolation from the rest of the employee value proposition,” says Sebesho. “If employers want to remain attractive to women, especially at the point where career and caregiving pressures intensify, then the broader package has to work harder around other aspects such as workplace flexibility, career continuity and financial support.
“The real question is whether the overall package still works for women over the long term.”
Policy change is widening the employer challenge
The decline in fully paid maternity leave comes as South Africa’s parental leave framework enters a new phase of review. Draft labour-law amendments published in February 2026 propose replacing the more fragmented maternity, parental, adoption and commissioning-parent structures with a more unified shared parental leave model, while also expanding adoption coverage and aligning UIF benefits with the revised framework.
“Employers should not read this only as a leave-policy question,” concludes Sebesho. “It is also a talent question. If one part of the package becomes less generous or more conditional, then the broader employee offering must work harder to show women that they can build sustainable careers within their organisation.”