Human resources professionals substantially underestimate men’s use of family caregiving leave while overestimating women’s absence, according to an October 2026 report by US insurer The Standard.
The report, Leave Perception by Gender: What HR Isn’t Seeing About Absence for Women and Men, found a significant gap between HR decision-makers’ perceptions and employees’ self-reported leave patterns. The findings raise questions about how employers communicate benefits, plan staffing and identify employees who may need time away from work.
The research drew on separate surveys of 509 HR decision-makers and 501 employees, conducted by two third-party research firms in early 2026. As the employee findings are self-reported and the sample is relatively small, the results indicate potential patterns rather than definitive population-wide estimates.
Family caregiving reveals the sharpest divide
The largest contrast concerns leave taken to care for a loved one’s physical health. HR decision-makers believe women are far more likely than men to take this type of leave, but employee responses show the reverse.
According to The Standard’s report:
Women: 60% of HR respondents believe women take family caregiving leave, while 48% of women employees report doing so.
Men: HR respondents estimate 6% of men take such leave, compared with 71% of men employees who report doing so.
The difference is substantial. HR perceptions place women well ahead of men, while the employee survey records a higher reported rate among men.
The findings suggest employers could overlook men’s caregiving responsibilities when developing absence cover, explaining leave entitlements and planning workforce availability.
Brad Yoder, assistant vice-president of life, supplemental and disability claims at The Standard, said the findings challenge assumptions about how men and women use employee leave.
“Minimising inaccurate perceptions related to leave and other benefits is an important step in improving retention,” Yoder said.
Physical and mental health leave show similar gaps
The differences extend beyond family caregiving. The report found discrepancies between HR estimates and employees’ accounts of leave for their own physical and mental health.
For personal physical health leave, HR respondents estimate that 34% of women and 14% of men take time off. Employees report lower use among women and higher use among men.
Mental health leave shows another marked difference. HR respondents believe 44% of women and 9% of men take leave for mental health reasons. Employees report rates of 5% among women and 13% among men.
The figures show how assumptions can diverge from reported employee experiences across different categories of absence.
The Standard’s report does not establish why these gaps exist. However, it notes that caregiving leave can be harder to track than medical leave because it may involve multiple programmes and broader administrative categories.
Parental leave perceptions also differ
The report identifies a similar mismatch in parental leave for pregnancy or bonding with a new child.
HR respondents estimate that 88% of women and 1% of men take this type of leave. By comparison, 33% of women and 22% of men employees report doing so.
The gap is particularly pronounced for men, whose reported participation is much higher than HR’s estimate. For women, HR’s estimate is considerably higher than the proportion reporting leave in the employee survey.
The findings raise questions about whether benefits communications adequately address fathers and non-birthing parents. If information primarily targets mothers, other employees may not recognise the support available to them or understand how to access it.
The report also identifies a generational difference in perceptions. HR respondents tend to associate parental leave with Gen Z and millennial employees, but Gen Z employees report taking family caregiving leave for physical health needs at higher rates than HR estimates.
Caregiving leave is becoming more significant
Separate research cited in the report points to an increase in employee caregiving leave. Sparrow’s 2026 State of Employee Leave Benchmark Report, which analysed more than three million days of leave, found caregiver leave usage had risen 150% since 2020.
The report also found that the median duration of caregiver leave had increased from 12.5 days to 49.5 days over the same period.
These figures underline the importance of understanding who takes caregiving leave and how long employees may be absent. However, Sparrow’s findings are separate from The Standard’s gender-perception survey and should not be treated as a direct measure of the same employee group.
Better absence data could help employers close the gap
The Standard’s findings point to a potential weakness in workforce planning: employers may be designing benefits communications and absence arrangements around assumptions that do not match employees’ reported behaviour.
More detailed absence data could help HR teams understand which employees use different forms of leave, identify gaps in benefits communication and plan cover more accurately. The report highlights the importance of reliable, timely information that distinguishes between types of absence.
The findings do not prove that employers’ assumptions directly cause lower benefits uptake or retention problems. They do, however, identify a sizeable perception gap that employers may need to examine when reviewing their policies.
For HR teams, the next step is to compare internal leave records with employee feedback and ensure benefits information reaches workers across genders and life stages. The extent to which organisations act on such evidence will determine whether their leave programmes better reflect the needs employees report.
