Paternity Leave in California: What Holds Your Job, and What Pays You

There is no California statute called paternity leave, so the honest answer is that two different clocks run at once. Cal. Gov. Code § 12945.2 gives an eligible employee up to 12 workweeks of CFRA leave in a 12-month period, and bonding with a new child is one of the qualifying reasons — that is the job-protected part, and it is unpaid. Separately, no more than 8 weeks of Paid Family Leave benefits are payable within any 12-month period under Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 3301(d) — that is the money, and it carries no job protection of its own. Most non-birthing parents therefore take up to 12 weeks off, with up to 8 of them partially paid.

Partly, and through a separate system from the one that protects your job. California Paid Family Leave pays up to 8 weeks of benefits within a 12-month period. Since 1 January 2025 the weekly amount has been calculated under Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 2655(f), which pays 90 percent of wages for lower earners and steps down to 70 percent, or a floor based on the state average weekly wage, for higher earners — all capped at the maximum workers' compensation temporary disability rate. Receiving those benefits does not by itself mean your job is held; that comes from CFRA, if you are eligible for it.

Far more of them than federal FMLA does. Cal. Gov. Code § 12945.2(b)(4) defines an employer as any person who directly employs five or more persons, plus the state and its political and civil subdivisions and cities. Federal FMLA generally starts at 50 employees. CFRA also has no equivalent of the FMLA rule excluding an employee whose worksite has fewer than 50 employees within 75 miles — so a small or remote California worksite that would defeat an FMLA claim does not defeat a CFRA one.

Two tests. Your employer must directly employ five or more persons, and you must have more than 12 months of service with that employer and at least 1,250 hours of service during the previous 12-month period. The hours test is the one part-time employees most often fail — 1,250 hours over a year is roughly 24 hours a week. Unlike FMLA there is no worksite-size or 75-mile test to clear on top of that.

They are separate entitlements and they stack, which is why the total time available to a birthing parent in California is longer than most people expect. Cal. Gov. Code § 12945 requires an employer to allow an employee disabled by pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition to take leave for a reasonable period not to exceed four months. CFRA leave for the employee's own serious health condition expressly excludes disability on account of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions — and § 12945.2 provides that CFRA leave runs concurrently with FMLA except for FMLA leave taken for pregnancy disability. So pregnancy disability leave and CFRA bonding leave are counted separately.

A notably wider list than federal FMLA. Section 12945.2(b)(5)(B) covers leave to care for a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, domestic partner, or designated person with a serious health condition. "Designated person" is defined at subsection (b)(2) as any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. Federal FMLA reaches only a spouse, parent or child. Grandparent, grandchild, sibling, domestic partner and designated person are all California additions.

Yes, for the duration of the leave. Cal. Gov. Code § 12945.2(e)(1) requires the employer to maintain and pay for coverage under a group health plan for the duration of the leave, not to exceed 12 workweeks, at the level and under the conditions that coverage would have been provided had the employee continued working. Your own share of the premium remains your responsibility, and arranging how you will pay it while receiving no paycheque is a conversation to have before the leave starts.

It depends entirely on whether the leave you are on is legally protected, which is why the table at the top of this page matters. If you are on CFRA or FMLA leave, or on pregnancy disability leave, your employer generally may not simply end your employment because you took it, and 2 CCR § 11089(d)(1) puts the burden on them to prove you would not otherwise have been employed on your reinstatement date. If the only thing you hold is a Paid Family Leave or State Disability Insurance claim, those pay you and do not by themselves protect your job — the protection would have to come from CFRA, FMLA, another statute, or your employer's own policy. And no leave of any kind immunises you from a genuine reduction in force that would have reached you anyway. What is never permitted is selecting you because you took the leave: Cal. Gov. Code § 12945.2(k) makes that an unlawful employment practice in its own right.

Not in the sense this page uses the term. Paid sick leave is accrued time off you can use in short blocks, not an extended protected absence. Cal. Lab. Code § 246 requires accrual at not less than one hour for every 30 hours worked, entitles you to use up to 40 hours or 5 days per year, and provides that an employer need not allow total accrual beyond 80 hours or 10 days. It is genuinely protected time and an employer should not discipline you for using it, but if you need weeks away rather than days, the question is whether CFRA, FMLA, PDL or an ADA accommodation reaches you.

Yes, but the employer carries the burden of justifying it, and that burden has a specific limit that is worth knowing. Under 2 CCR § 11089(d)(1) an employer has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the employee would not otherwise have been employed on the requested reinstatement date in order to deny reinstatement — and that burden is not satisfied if the employee has been replaced, or the employee's position has been restructured to accommodate the employee's absence. Where an employee is genuinely laid off during CFRA leave, the same regulation provides that the employer's responsibility to continue the leave, maintain group health plan benefits and reinstate ceases at the point of layoff, absent a continuing obligation under a collective bargaining agreement or otherwise.

Yes. Cal. Gov. Code § 12945.2(k) makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to refuse to hire, or to discharge, fine, suspend, expel or discriminate against any individual because of the individual's exercise of the right to family care and medical leave. That is a separate wrong from failing to reinstate you, and it is the provision that reaches a layoff selection driven by the fact that you took leave.