LEAVE GRANTED, PROGRESS DENIED: Maternity Benefits, Hiring Hesitation and Post-Maternity Discrimination under India’s Labour Code.

The consolidation of labour laws under the Code on Social Security, 2020, implemented in November 2025, represents a significant advancement in statutory maternity protection in India. The framework provides 26 weeks of paid maternity leave, crèche facilities, work-from-home options, and medical benefits. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court in Hamsanandini Nanduri v. Union of India expanded the scope of maternity benefits by striking down the three-month age restriction under Section 60(4), extending 12 weeks of benefits to adoptive mothers irrespective of the child’s age, and grounding maternity protection within the framework of reproductive rights under Articles 14 and 21. Notwithstanding these developments, maternity protections must be understood within India’s socio-cultural context. Early Vedic literature, including the Rig Veda and Taittiriya Upanishad, articulated a reverential conception of motherhood through Matru Devo Bhava, portraying women as embodiments of nurturing शक्ति (Shakti), with intellectual contributions from Gargi Vachaknavi and Maitreyi. However, later texts such as the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Manusmriti institutionalised a patriarchal framework, confining women to reproductive and caregiving roles, producing a duality where motherhood is both idealised and regulated. In contemporary labour markets, this duality manifests in the treatment of maternity as an economic liability. Employers often hesitate to hire women of childbearing age, while working mothers face post-maternity discrimination, including delayed promotions, biased evaluations, role downgrading, contractualization, and workforce exit. These challenges are intensified in private, informal, and gig sectors, with intersectional factors such as caste and class exacerbating vulnerabilities. This paper adopts a doctrinal and empirical approach to assess whether enhanced maternity protections create unintended disincentives for hiring and retention. It advocates complementary reforms, including state-funded benefits, shared parental leave, stronger anti-discrimination enforcement, and effective childcare infrastructure, to transform maternity rights into substantive instruments of gender equality. Keywords: Maternity Benefits, Code on Social Security 2020, Reproductive Rights, Gender Equality, Maternity Discrimination, Adoptive Mothers