Just one in 10 young fathers take time off work under the official unpaid paternity leave scheme to take care of young children, the national statistics office CBS said on Wednesday.

Parents with children under the age of eight are entitled to 13 weeks of unpaid leave, spread out over at least 26 weeks but in 2017, only 70,000 new fathers did so, the CBS said.

A further 66,000 fathers said they would like to take leave but could either not afford, said it would damage their career prospects or found it impossible to combine with their job.

New fathers are also entitled to five days paid paternity leave from this year. In 2017, the year in which the research is based on, official paternity leave was just two days.