Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

vogue.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 485 posts

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#221

Post by luckylion »

woodpanel wrote: post #115
teraku wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a much simpler explanation. Most people can't afford it. The median income in Germany is ~44k/yr. If we assume the woman earns a bit less, we can already see why it's more common for the mother to take the paternal leave. It's less of a hit on the finances. If the dad takes it, or both, they might not be able to sustain themselves for long.

If I imagine the women earning a bit less, I imagine them getting 65% of less. Whoever of the parents is earning less, in most cases it would make more sense for the less compensated parent to just switch into part-time, if he/she isn't already working a tax-free "mini-job", while the higher compensated parent takes the leave. This yields the highest income per hours@home.

> This yields the highest income per hours@home.

But that's usually not what people optimize for, they optimize for max total income, because rent or mortgage payments etc aren't based on a percentage of income but fixed amounts. Sure, it's great if you only work one hour a month and get 1000€ for that instead of working 100 hours and getting 4000€. But if your rent is 1100€, what good does that do?

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#222

Post by allan-a »

sdfqasdghj wrote: post #191
black_knight wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. In Norway fathers and mothers must each take 15 weeks. And then in total there are either 49 weeks (with 100% pay) or 59 weeks (with 80% pay), so you can divide the remaining weeks between the two. But there are some inequalities in the system still. For instance, the father can only take the shared weeks if the mother is in "activity" (working or studying). While in Sweden there is no such requirements. And…

1. The two weeks at birth aren't legally full pay (most employers pay you anyway). 2. Yes if the mother doesn't qualify the father doesn't qualify. I think that there has been a court case that found that this is not legal. But the law has not yet been updated.

I can confirm this. I'm an American living in Norway and I have had two children. My wife is also American, and we moved to Norway while she was pregnant with our first child. Because my wife had not been working we were not entitled to the normal benefits. Time has passed, and my wife got a job in her career field. We are now expecting a third, and because of covid-19 my wife has been unable to work the required minimum during her pregnancy. So we are looking at having a third child without the normal benefits! From the American perspective this is still great. We get "free" healthcare and a nice lump-sum grant, but I (the father) don't qualify for paternity leave and the lump sum grant is not huge in comparison. The grant is like 1/6th of the amount that most families get with their leave.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#223

Post by pi-rat »

sdfqasdghj wrote: post #206
ido wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you assume that? With my second child I took 4 months of parental leave (2 of which simultaneously with my wife) & divided between ages 0-2 & 10-12 months old.

Because that's what most fathers do... Also they just finished their pappaperm which they said was 133 days over the summer and that means their child likely started in nursery in August or September as is the child's legal entitlement if they were born before August last year or in September last year... I get that you did something different but the OP's case really does sound like they did what most Norwegian fath…

Correct, we did use our (combined) 10 weeks of vacation to create overlap though.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#224

Post by heyoo »

pacamara619 wrote: post #5

Meanwhile the Swiss people voted to have two weeks of paternity leave instead of one day. The icing on the cake is that the actual initiative asked for four weeks but the parliament made a counter-proposal of two weeks after which the intiative committee withdrew their proposal of four. 60% of the voters were in favor. Two weeks in one of the highest gdp per capita countries of the world. Two. Measly. Weeks. It was j…

In Denmark we also only have two weeks paternity leave. But then between 7-12 months to split between mother and father. However, the most common (in my experience) is that the mother uses the full leave.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#225

Post by mcv »

Good. I consider 14 days of paternity leave the absolute minimum; less than that is just irresponsible, because you really shouldn't leave the mother alone during that time. Official maternal care is rarely full-time. Also, those maternal care people can teach you a lot of useful things about how to take care of your baby that are also important to learn for a father.

More time is better because of extra bonding with the new family, and it can be stressful for the newborn to go to fulltime childcare before they're 6 months old (after that, I think at least some childcare is good for socialisation).

I love the generous paternal leave Scandinavians get. When I had my kids, Dutch paternity leave was only 2 days: one for the birth itself, and one for registering your baby's birth. Only in 2019 did they expand that to a whole whoppingly insufficient week.

For both kids, I took 3 months off. For the first, it initially was two weeks; not sure if I took it as days off or sick care or something; I hadn't planned to take time off originally, until I suddenly realised I simply couldn't go to work, so I called in and said I couldn't work. After those two weeks, I went back to work, and after my wife's maternity leave had ran out and she was eager to get back to work, I took 3 months parental leave (might have been unpaid; not sure). For the second it was unpaid, because I'm a freelancer, but I don't care. This stuff is more important.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#226

Post by gspr »

souprock wrote: post #29
car wrote: post #22

Compare this to 480 days of shared and paid parental leave in Sweden at 80% salary. The fathers are looked at negatively if the don’t take some of this time. https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-maternity-leave-pater...

That is enough time to have another kid. I have 12 so far. If I lived in Sweden, I wouldn't have to work. I could keep it going for decades. It's odd that Swedes aren't taking full advantage of the situation.

Having 12 kids seems like a lot more work than most jobs.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#227

Post by andrepd »

fsloth wrote: post #218
growlist wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How lovely. Is this affordable anywhere other than a petrostate?

Yes. It's more of a matter of culture and priorities than excessive expenses.

It's a matter of money more than it's a matter of "culture".

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#228

Post by alkonaut »

andrepd wrote: post #227
fsloth wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's more of a matter of culture and priorities than excessive expenses.

It's a matter of money more than it's a matter of "culture".

Counterexample: Sweden is arguably less "rich" than both Norway and the US and has a more generous system than both.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#229

Post by mcv »

growlist wrote: post #201
pi-rat wrote: post #156

28 days? That's barely enough to get your head off from work tbh. I just finished 133 days (at 80% pay) of paternity leave here in Norway, and the last part was def more rewarding than the start as you hit your new stride and regular work life grew ever more distant. All the organised toddler activities shut down because of covid19. Bought one of those child carrier backpacks, and we've been exploring forests and mou…

How lovely. Is this affordable anywhere other than a petrostate?

Being a petrostate has nothing to do with it. Any healthy economy can afford this, if they care about parenthood.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#230

Post by raxxorrax »

MichaelGlass wrote: post #120
souprock wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is enough time to have another kid. I have 12 so far. If I lived in Sweden, I wouldn't have to work. I could keep it going for decades. It's odd that Swedes aren't taking full advantage of the situation.

Florida Man informs Sweden and Germany that their societies are failing. In other news https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBqY-4oDWAQ&feature=youtu.be... But in all seriousness, Germany and Sweden (and the USA for that matter) all have sub-replacement fertility rates. I understand that you believe that people will reproduce like rabbits, especially if incentivized, but the data doesn't reflect that. In every system ther…

This is only problem with that is out economic system. Normally I would assume that would clearly point out the perversion of it, but that seems to be just a dream. Otherwise humanity isn't really in danger of dying out.

You think people not having children are abusing the system? I know many who just don't want to become parents at 40 anymore, so they will never have children. That decision is also influenced by economic situations.

Post reply on HN