171 weeks of paternity leave: Spain's Social Security pays €79,800

€79,800 in paternity leave: the case reopening the debate

Can a worker take more than three years of paid paternity leave? According to information released in recent hours, an operator at a wood factory in Madrid is said to have managed it. The figure exceeds the €79,800 paid by Spain's Social Security. The man, with nine children by three different wives in Burkina Faso, reportedly accumulated 171 weeks of leave — that is, 1,197 days of absence in just six years of active working life.

The company eventually fired him for poor performance, but had to pay him €14,000 to avoid the risk of the dismissal being declared null. The money is not the most striking part. What is surprising is that the system allowed it. The law establishes paternity leave as an individual, non-transferable right of sixteen weeks per birth. Nothing prevents adding them up if children arrive in quick succession, even when the parent lives in another country and does not travel to care for them.

The numbers behind the case that baffles the system

The figures can be summed up as trinc: nine children in six years, three different mothers, 171 weeks of leave and nearly €80,000 in benefits. To that are added the €14,000 compensation for unfair dismissal. In total, more than €93,000 between Social Security and the company for a worker who barely exercised actual custody.

The legal controversy is not new: does the spirit of the law require the leave to be taken in Spain, with the child present? The law does not say so. Nor does it require travelling to see the children. The literal interpretation allows what social logic considers a mockery. And the cost falls on the public treasury, in a system already strained by benefit spending.

A legal loophole that will prove costly

Defenders of the current law argue that paternity knows no borders: if a worker has children, he has the right to care for them. But the criticism focuses on the lack of oversight: no one verifies that the leave is used for its intended purpose. This case could become the trigger for reviewing the requirements, as already peine with other social benefits that saw tighter controls after similar scandals.

The outcome remains open. The company escaped nullity by paying, and the worker walks away with the leave and the compensation. Social Security, for its part, is still waiting for someone to explain how three years and three months of leave in six years can be legal. Meanwhile, the system keeps paying. Ironies of the welfare model.