Men File About Half of Bonding Claims in California and Several Other States
In California, as in several other states, men account for about half of bonding claim applications. That figure sits inside a patchwork: no federal law guarantees paid parental leave, and California is one of 14 states plus Washington, D.C. that have passed legislation creating paid family leave programs. In many of those places, more fathers are opting in.
Molly Weston Williamson, policy director at the advocacy group Paid Leave for All, said the understanding of gender roles, of paternity leave and of fathers' roles is in a very different place than it was 20-plus years ago. The aggregate hides some hesitation: one father said he initially wasn't sure he should take paternity leave at all, because of lingering gender stereotypes.
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NPR's frame is a broader cultural shift toward fathers doing more caregiving, but the striking number is about bonding claim applications — who filed, not how the leave was spent or how the nights got divided.
Eligibility is the more concrete variable. California is one of 14 states plus D.C. with a paid family leave law, and elsewhere there is no federal guarantee to fall back on, so the trend is bounded by where the benefit exists.