Published Aug 24, 2026 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 24, 2026 | 7:00 AM
Tamil Nadu has extended maternity leave for a third child from 12 weeks to 365 days.
Synopsis: Tamil Nadu has extended maternity leave for third-child births to 365 days amid falling fertility and rapid ageing. Population Foundation of India’s Poonam Muttreja welcomed the move but called for broader policies covering childcare, parental leave, women’s employment, eldercare, migration and social security rather than direct fertility incentives.
Tamil Nadu has extended maternity leave for a third child from 12 weeks to 365 days, matching the leave already available for the first two children. Population Foundation of India Executive Director Poonam Muttreja welcomed the move but urged the state to look beyond leave policy.
“Tamil Nadu is right to respond to its demographic transition, but it is important to be precise and strategic about what is happening,” Muttreja said.
Human Resources Management Minister D Sarathkumar announced the extension in the state Assembly on 18 August during discussions on his department’s demand for grants.
“Under these circumstances, as the Tamil Nadu government is a welfare-oriented administration prioritising social welfare and women’s empowerment, the maternity leave currently provided for the third child of female government employees will be enhanced from 12 weeks to 365 days,” Sarathkumar said.
Women employees with fewer than two surviving children currently receive 365 days of maternity leave. Those with two or more children receive 12 weeks with full pay. The change removes that gap for a third child. A government order to implement the decision is expected soon.
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Tamil Nadu has steadily added days to maternity leave over the past decade and a half. The state raised the original 90-day period to six months in 2011, extended it to nine months in 2016, and moved it to 365 days in July 2021.
The latest change arrives as the state grapples with falling fertility and a rising elderly population. Health Minister KG Arunraj said Tamil Nadu’s Total Fertility Rate has dropped below 1.4, well under the replacement level of 2.1. He said nearly 16% of the population now falls above age 60.
“This means Tamil Nadu is gradually becoming an ageing society,” Arunraj said, noting that the state may need to consider steps that encourage couples to have more children. He did not announce an incentive scheme for larger families, saying such measures require long-term planning.
“The birth rate in Tamil Nadu is gradually declining. This is definitely a major public health challenge. We need to meet officials from different departments and discuss how we can address this and improve the situation,” Arunraj said.
He pointed to Andhra Pradesh, which has moved from population control towards population management, offering ₹30,000 for a third child and ₹40,000 for a fourth, alongside proposed nutritional support, free education up to age 18, and subsidised fertility treatment, including IVF.
“We were told that in Andhra Pradesh, there are government schemes providing incentives for couples to have a third child. Therefore, in the future, there could definitely be such things here too,” Arunraj said.
The government has not linked the leave extension directly to fertility concerns in its Assembly announcement, though the timing coincides with the wider debate on population.
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Muttreja placed the figures in context. “NFHS-6 puts the state’s TFR at 1.7, while Population Foundation of India’s projections suggest it could move towards about 1.4 in the coming years,” she said. “At the same time, Tamil Nadu is ageing rapidly: by 2051, 31.1% of its population is projected to be 60+, while the working-age share could fall to 56.6.”
She called the leave extension a step in the right direction, but cautioned against overcorrection.
“A one-year maternity leave benefit tied to the third child is a more supportive approach than coercive or punitive population policy, because it reduces the cost of childbearing rather than forcing a reproductive choice,” Muttreja said. “But governments should be careful not to move from telling women to have fewer children to telling them to have more. The objective should be to make it easier for people to have the number of children they already want.”
Muttreja argued that sustained policy, not one-off payments or leave alone, will shape outcomes. “In the long term, policies around maternity and parental leave, affordable childcare, workplace flexibility, job protection and social security are likely to be more sustainable than one-time cash incentives,” she said.
She flagged a tension between supporting childbirth and keeping women in jobs. “The real challenge is a dual one: how do you make childbearing easier without pushing women out of the workforce?” she said. “A longer maternity benefit can help, but if childcare remains expensive, fathers do not share care, and women continue to face career penalties after childbirth, a longer maternity leave alone will not solve the problem.”
She said paternity leave and childcare infrastructure carry equal weight. “That is why paternity and parental leave, childcare infrastructure and greater sharing of unpaid care by men are just as important,” Muttreja said, citing a joint report by Population Foundation of India and the International Institute for Migration and Development that placed care infrastructure and women’s workforce participation at the centre of demographic planning.
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On the ageing population, Muttreja said fertility measures alone will not close the gap. “Children born today will take roughly two decades to enter the labour force,” she said. “Tamil Nadu therefore also needs to invest urgently in geriatric healthcare, eldercare, pensions and social protection, while planning for labour mobility and migration from younger parts of India.”
She set out the approach she wants governments to take. “The state needs a comprehensive population policy that brings together low fertility, ageing, women’s employment, care, migration and reproductive choice,” Muttreja said. “That is the line governments should hold: create conditions that support families and remove barriers to childbearing, but do not prescribe an ideal family size.”
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
