Volvo will set parental leave at 6 months for all staff globally as part of efforts to close its gender gap

• Volvo has announced it will set parental leave at 24 weeks for all employees in all countries.
• CEO Håkan Samuelsson said the move would help reduce the gender gap and support career development.
• The policy is inclusive of all genders and also applies to adoptive, foster, and surrogate parents.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Volvo has announced it will set parental leave for all parents at 24 weeks in all countries in a bid to eliminate gender disparities at the company.

"We want to create a culture that supports equal parenting for all genders," chief executive Håkan Samuelsson said in a press release. "When parents are supported to balance the demands of work and family, it helps to close the gender gap and allows everyone to excel in their careers."

The new policy is effective as of April 1 and comes weeks after calls for paid parental leave in the US to be made permanent legislation. A survey conducted by The Economist in March also found the US ranked below average on women's equality in the workplace.

Maternity leave at Volvo has always been six months but for fathers, it was determined by national legislation, according to the Financial Times.

However, Volvo's new policy is inclusive of all genders and allows all legal parents to take 24 weeks of parental leave, including adoptive, foster, and surrogate parents as well as both partners in same-sex couples.

Head of corporate functions Hanna Fager said Volvo wanted to "lead change in this industry and set a new global people standard."

"It will cost millions of dollars, but it is the right thing to do, and we hope others will follow," Samuelsson told the Financial Times. He also said it would benefit the business long-term as buyers would "choose brands more on values than on horsepower."

A survey of more than 440,000 parents at around 1,200 companies by Great Place to Work showed that companies with generous and paid parental leave schemes reported higher levels of employee retention and engagement.

Samuelsson told the Financial Times the move would likely result in more women occupying executive positions, adding, "We don't want to see females overtaken when they have kids."

A third of Volvo's executives are women, Reuters reported, although they are working to increase this to 50%.

The next ten years look to be transformative for the Geely-owned company, with a shift to only electric cars by 2030.