Parental leave in special circumstances: A guide for NZ employers

8 Apr

The journey to parenthood takes many different paths. As an employer, your understanding and support through these diverse journeys can make a significant difference to your employees and your organisation.

Parental leave isn't one-size-fits-all. Several circumstances require special consideration in your policies and practices, which is why we created specific guides:

Creating a supportive policy

Increasingly, employers are creating more inclusive parental leave policies that:

Make employer-paid parental leave benefits available to employees who qualify for parental leave under NZ law, which includes parents who take permanent responsibility for a child under six, not just via birth
Provide additional paid leave for pregnancy loss and family formation, which can include adoption, fostering, surrogacy and fertility treatments
Offer top-up payments for preterm births in addition to any employer-paid parental leave

Need a hand improving your policy or modelling the cost?

Gain our insights from creating the largest NZ database of verified parental leave policies, a growing number of which include provisions to support surrogates.

👉 Use the Parental Leave Costing Tool

👉 Book a free policy review

Now for the important legal part: The information we provide is general and not regulated financial advice for the purposes of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. Please seek independent legal, financial, tax or other advice in considering whether the content in this article is appropriate for your goals, situation or needs. The information in this article is current as at 19 May 2025.