--- title: Facebook Expanding Parental Leave to Four Months description: Now all global employees will receive four months of paid leave. canonical: https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-29T20:15:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:40:10.641Z article:section: Health og:title: Facebook Expanding Parental Leave to Four Months og:description: Now all global employees will receive four months of paid leave og:url: https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2626daf33a40a84/698872f63c1639336b45aedb/zuckerberg-chan-facebook-parental-leave-policy-expanded.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4795 og:image:height: 2697 og:image:alt: Priscilla Chan Mark Zuckerberg parental leave expanded four months og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Facebook Expanding Parental Leave to Four Months twitter:description: Now all global employees will receive four months of paid leave twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2626daf33a40a84/698872f63c1639336b45aedb/zuckerberg-chan-facebook-parental-leave-policy-expanded.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Facebook Expanding Worldwide Parental Leave to Four Months > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=16bf43fb-c7dd-41da-8360-07161c166831&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Facebook Expands Its Parental Leave Policy Across the Globe [Watch (HLS stream): Facebook Expands Its Parental Leave Policy Across the Globe](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Y2WvksVO.m3u8) (1:11)  _Published 2015-11-29. Facebook announced it's expanding the parental leave policy to include "all new parents, no matter their gender or where in the world they live."_  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Nov 29, 2015 8:15 PM UTC Facebook announced it's expanding the parental leave policy to include "all new parents, no matter their gender or where in the world they live."  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Nov 29, 2015 8:15 PM UTC Facebook announced that global employees will receive four months of paid parental leave, in the latest in a series of signs that Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are becoming more family-friendly. “We want to be there for our people at all stages of life, and in particular we strive to be a leading place to work for families,” wrote Lori Matloff Goler, Facebook’s Human Resources head, in a [Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/lori/posts/10101025576188894). She said the updated policy affects primarily men and people in same-sex relationships across the world, and does not alter existing maternity leave practices. Just last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will take two months of parental leave when his wife Priscilla Chan gives birth to their first child. In the post he cited the paternity leave time of four months for Facebook employees in the U.S., which has now been expanded to include all of the roughly [12,000 Facebook employees](http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/) worldwide. Facebook is the latest in a [growing list](http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-amazon-apple-facebook/) of tech companies updating their paternity leave policies, including Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Netlix and Spotify. The updates to existing parental leave policies [reflect a cultural shift](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/upshot/silicon-valley-is-growing-up-giving-parents-a-break.html) within the tech industry, as many young employees in Silicon Valley reach the next stage of their lives. ## Transcript [00:00] It seems Facebook's more than 12, 000 employees [00:03] around the world will be getting the same benefits as [00:05] the tech giant's CEO, well, at least when it comes to [00:09] having kids. Facebook announced it's expanding the [00:12] parental leave policy to include all new parents, no [00:15] matter their gender or where in the world they live. [00:18] This announcement comes on the heels of Mark [00:20] Zuckerberg's own announcement that he's taking two [00:22] months of paternity leave when his daughter is born. [00:24] Facebook's current parental leave policy let's new [00:27] parents take four months of paid leave any time during [00:30] the newborns first year of life. The expansion goes into [00:34] effect January 1st. Many tech companies including [00:37] Microsoft, Adobe, and Netflix have all recently [00:40] increased the amount of paid leave for parents. But [00:43] that trend in Silicon Valley hasn't exactly spread [00:46] throughout the country. The US is still the only [00:49] economically advanced country in the world that does [00:51] not have mandatory paid maternity leave. U. S. also [00:55] doesn't have a policy at all for fathers. As for why [00:58] Facebook expanded its policy, the announcement says, [01:02] we believe that fathers and mothers alike deserve the [01:05] same level of support when they are starting and [01:07] growing a family, regardless of how they define family. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/"},"headline":"Facebook Expanding Worldwide Parental Leave to Four Months","datePublished":"2015-11-29T20:15:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:40:10.641Z","description":"Now all global employees will receive four months of paid leave","url":"https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/","keywords":["Parenting","Tech","facebook","parental leave"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2626daf33a40a84/698872f63c1639336b45aedb/zuckerberg-chan-facebook-parental-leave-policy-expanded.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc2626daf33a40a84/698872f63c1639336b45aedb/zuckerberg-chan-facebook-parental-leave-policy-expanded.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Priscilla Chan Mark Zuckerberg parental leave expanded four months","caption":"Priscilla Chan Mark Zuckerberg parental leave expanded four months","creditText":"Peter Barreras—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/parenting/","name":"Parenting"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/","name":"Facebook Expanding Worldwide Parental Leave to Four Months"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Facebook Expands Its Parental Leave Policy Across the Globe","description":"Facebook announced it's expanding the parental leave policy to include \"all new parents, no matter their gender or where in the world they live.\"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Y2WvksVO/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-11-29T22:55:07.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Y2WvksVO.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/","duration":"PT1M11S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4128702/facebook-expanding-parental-leave-four-months/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```