How Nigeria’s Labour System Keeps Fathers Away From Their Children

In Nigeria, the birth of a child is met with prayers, immense joy, communal celebration and pride. But for many Nigerian fathers, that moment ends almost immediately. By the next morning, work resumes for them as normal. There is no luxury or structured pause for adjustment and protected time for bonding with their newborn. Most often, there is no expectation that a man will be present for the earliest days of his child’s life. They are then forced into a false trade-off between economic survival and participation in the earliest, most formative days of their child’s life.

This is because the Nigerian Labour Act does not guarantee paternity leave. By omission, it assumes that early childcare is not part of a father’s role. As the law excludes fathers from the earliest stage of caregiving, absence is normalised, and fatherhood is reduced to financial provision alone. And the outcomes are not the best.

Evidence from longitudinal cohort studies in early childhood development suggests that a father’s active involvement in the first six months of life is associated with measurable improvements in child cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes later in early childhood. Children with highly involved fathers tend to score higher on standardised cognitive and learning assessments in early developmental stages, compared to peers with low paternal engagement.

While the federal policy grants 14 days of paternity leave to civil servants, the majority of Nigerian men in the private sector and informal economy have no legal right to time off when a child is born. They are left at the mercy of employer discretion, and most are forced to return to work almost immediately. This creates a ripple effect, for both men and women.

Nigeria is effectively taxing women for the biological and social costs of childbirth while failing to recognise the wider economic burden of unpaid care work, which women disproportionately carry. The consequence is exhausted mothers, absent fathers, and children entering their earliest months without the full support systems evidence shows they require. This is already costing Nigeria through reduced female workforce participation, avoidable health strain, and long-term developmental losses absorbed by families and the state.

Nigeria must introduce at least 14 days of fully paid paternity leave across both public and private sectors, alongside a minimum standard of 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leave for mothers. If a society claims to value families, it cannot continue to maintain a labour system that structurally removes fathers from the foundations of family life and denies children the full support systems they deserve for early childcare.

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Jude Oseh is an advocate for inclusive growth and women’s leadership. He is the Founder of The Innovation Centre for Inclusive Growth, an advocacy platform focused on democracy, development, and trade. Through this platform, he has consistently supported efforts to advance women’s participation in leadership and governance, including advocating for the adoption of the 35% affirmative action framework and the Reserved Seat for Women Bill as a mechanism for improving women’s representation in public and institutional leadership.

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