Are parenting leaves available for LGBTQ parents? Examining policies in Canada, Croatia, France, Iceland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

This chapter examines LGBTQ parents' access to parenting options and the availability of parenting leave for LGBTQ parents in Canada, Croatia, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, and the UK. The first part of the chapter provides a brief overview of the recognition and access to parenting rights of coupled LGBTQ parents in relation to same-sex marriage, adoption, assisted reproductive technology, and surrogacy. The second part of the chapter focuses on leave eligibility, (in)equality of female and male same-sex parents in access to leave, and recognition of transgender and non-binary parents as well as multi-parent families. While there have been efforts to make policies more inclusive of LGBTQ families, our case studies show that it is not only restrictions in parenting leave policies that limit leave access for LGBTQ parents but rather restrictions in policies based on gender (mothers get more leave than fathers), paths to parenthood (birth parents get more leave than adoptive parents), and views of family (multi-parent families are not recognized).