Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said he planned to take two months of paternity leave after his daughter is born this year, amid a debate about work-life balance at technology companies.
In a post on Facebook on Friday, Mr. Zuckerberg said it was “a personal decision,” and added that “studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families.” Facebook gives employees in the United States as much as four months of paid maternity or paternity leave, he said.
Facebook declined to comment.
Family leave policies have become the subject of much discussion in the tech industry. In August, Netflix, the streaming video service, said it was beginning an unlimited leave policy for new mothers and fathers for the first year after the birth or adoption of a child. That same month, Microsoft said it would offer new parents an additional eight weeks of paid time off, in a boost to its previous policy. Adobe also shifted its leave policies, as did Amazon in November by offering 20 weeks of leave for birth mothers and as much as six weeks for fathers.
Silicon Valley investors and executives have also debated what it takes to work at technology companies after The New York Times published an article in August about Amazon’s bruising workplace culture. At the time, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said he did not “recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either.”
Mr. Zuckerberg revealed in July in a Facebook post that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were expecting their first child. He said he and Ms. Chan had had three miscarriages before this pregnancy, an unusually personal disclosure for an executive who has been largely private.
In response to the paternity leave announcement, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, posted: “Enjoy the precious early months with your daughter — I can’t wait to meet her.”