Some states (and other countries) offer paid family leave (not only applicable to births) via payroll taxes, i.e. wealth redistribution. Me, I prefer a society where children have a higher probability of being attended to by their parents even if it costs me some money.
payroll taxes on employers = less salary
A bit less money but a healthier society is still an improvement in the way of life. If you only measure everything in money, you're going to miss out on a lot.
If a company gives you a negative score due to a gap that's explained by taking time out to look after a baby then you're probably better off not working there.
A negative score due to a gap is the same as a positive score due to an extra years employment, and that's a harder mindset to overcome. Only the most toxic of workplaces would say "hey, they took a year out to raise a child, no way" but many workplaces would say " these two candidates appear equal except this one has an extra year's experience in $foo"
You're trying to defend this practise by suggesting it's 'only the most toxic workplaces', but that's not the case. Given two candidates who both have 5 years experience but one has a gap of a year to raise a baby, lots of companies will chose the other candidate. Talk to parents. Understand the problem. Companies assume that if you've taken a year once then you'll probably do it again if you have a second child, and consequently they avoiding hiring you. Don't be an apologist for those companies that do it.
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...
Sweden used to have this really nice system where you got extra money whenever both parents took more than 30% of the days. We got several unexpected transfers of 300€ because of this, which for us at the time was a huge boon.
Even if we're being that cynical - taking on much more work than you can handle and increasing your expenses multiple multiple times for the next 20 years - that's not retirement.
Sweden also pays you per kid. At 11 kids you'd get about $24k a year since it scales up. As long as you live in a cheap area you don't have to spend that much money on the kids, since you don't pay for education or healthcare or daycare. Also since you are on parental leave you still get that money.
Our former CTO was asked what paternity leave he thought tech employees should have (in a country with no legal requirement for it) and he said, "4 months", which then made it into everyone's contracts.
Only he thought he was being asked about Maternity leave and now the company is honouring that deal even a 18 months after his departure. It makes me want to have a child real soon before they rewrite that clause.
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…
Fair enough I didn't know Norway disallowed parallel leave. The way we did it is normal in Germany at least among my social circle.
But I also think that aside from not sleeping at night (which depending on if the mother breastfeeds the father may not be able to help much with anyway) the first few months before the kid starts crawling are actually easier than the subsequent few years. For us it was mostly about spending that special time together as a family.
Meanwhile in Germany people get 14months paid leave. Where neither parent can take more than 12.
It's important to note here that paid means 67% of you net salary but only up to 1800€. While this is nice, this is not enough to just live off for most people (that don't have a lot of savings).
> this is not enough to just live off for most people
I don't think many people can pull the "the state doesn't provide enough to have kids" card in Germany to be honest. At some point people have to understand that yes, having a kid means you will have less money at the end of the month and will most likely result in personal sacrifices.
Twelve kids is 24/7 work. Why I would change 8 hours to it? It is also unethical way of life in this planet.
> It is also unethical way of life in this planet. Let’s not project western purity codes to the entire planet. This planet still has countries with high mortality rates, infant and otherwise.
Well, the context is specifically Sweden. I don't think that's projecting any "western purity codes" anywhere.
Meanwhile in Germany people get 14months paid leave. Where neither parent can take more than 12.
Before people think that this policy is all roses, a close friend of mine is the CEO of a multi billion dollar international business. They don’t hire anyone from France because the French government makes it so difficult to fire a bad hire. Maybe you could argue that the French are better off without them, but people love working for them and they have great pay and benefits. I’m sure there are a number of companies…
> They don’t hire anyone from France because the French government makes it so difficult to fire a bad hire
That's why you have a 6 months trial period, right ?
How lovely. Is this affordable anywhere other than a petrostate?
Yes. Sweden and Germany do it. Actually Norwegian parental leave is not that generous by the standards of similar countries. There is one year total of leave shared between mother and father (or other mother).
On the other hand, in Norway you can get 100% up to a quite large maximum. As opposed to 80% capped at 1000SEK per day in Sweden.
Edit: Living in Norway is more expensive though. So a family of low income might not have been able to sustain themselves if the compensation was lower.