The International Labour Organisation’s Resolution Concerning Decent Work and the Care Economy (2024) calls on member states to design and implement integrated and coherent care policies grounded in a rights-based approach, international labour standards and meaningful social dialogue, with the twin aims of advancing decent work and achieving substantive gender equality. South Africa’s proposed legislative response to parental leave, as reflected in the Employment Laws Amendment Bill, 2025 as a response to the judgment of the Constitutional Court in Van Wyk v Minister of Employment and Labour 2025 12 BLLR 1213 (CC), raises fundamental questions about whether the country’s emerging framework is genuinely fit for this purpose. With reference to Van Wyk, the Employment Laws Amendment Bill, relevant international labour standards and other primary and secondary sources of your own research, critically analyse whether South Africa’s proposed framework for parental leave regulation is adequate to realise the goals of decent work and substantive gender equality as articulated in the ILO Resolution.