French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by matsemann » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #373

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…

Good for you, but that really doesn't add much to the discussion... Norway has > 800x the oil reserves per capita of France and has not gone through what you could call a political crisis over the past few years regarding aligning the spending level of its welfare state with the economic and budgetary realities, with years of protests and riots, some of which are still ongoing. In the face of this it's quite a bold m…

Then don't compare to Norway. Compare to Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland or any of the others mentioned elsewhere here.

I also find your argument a bit weird. Why not start an discussion about if the cost is worth it (which is what you want to discuss) instead of picking on the details of the country in question?

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

#392

Post by smnrchrds » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #85

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good start would be outlawing negative scoring of candidates due to gaps.

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.

If it's just one employer, that would be their loss. If it's all employers, that would be your loss. And the reality is much closer to the latter than the former.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-ter...

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

#393

Post by packet_nerd » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

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…

Wow...

Our first daughter was born a few weeks ago. I took off the first week, but it had to come out of my PTO (and I only have 2 weeks total per year). My wife had to quit her job so she could recuperate and spend time with the baby. She had a rough c-section and is still in bed in a lot of pain. I'm trying to work, take care of her, and take care of the baby.

I wrote a long angry paragraph about US politics and culture here, but on second thought, for my mental sanity I need to drop it.

SO and I have been seriously discussing moving somewhere else and plan to once the pandemic eases up enough for travel to be easier. We're still not 100% sure yet where to go though.

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

#394

Post by Ericson2314 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

rags2riches wrote: post #315

matsemann wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the government paying. Up to a fixed amount. But most high earners are in a position where the company will pay the difference as a perk. If it were companies having to pay, that would probably lead to some aversion about hiring people without children in the right age. But that's probably an aversion lots of companies in other countries have about women. "Will they have kids and leave the workforce soon?". I st…

If you want to force an even split or not depends on if you see the system as something that enables people to make choices that are good, or something that makes them do what you think is good (for the parents in question or for the society in general). I know a couple that had two children. He wanted a third child. She wanted a PhD. The current Swedish system enabled them to have a child and let him take virtually…

Ugh, more myopic individualism.

How about this: after we mandate even split and the culture changes, we give parents back the right to allocate it as they see fit.

Hell, if we want to converge faster and get back to parental choice quicker, we might mandate 3:2 men's vs women's paid leave.

Annecodes like your female PhD candidate story are no basis for determining policy.

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

#395

Post by hcurtiss » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #298

bluesquared wrote: post #264

Here in "flyover country, USA" I was looked down upon for asking to use two weeks of my own PTO after my company's new 'generous' two week paid parental leave. That request was constantly pushed off until the week of my wife's induction, when it was formally declined. I was told the request was 'excessive' and that generally the woman needs more time to recover but the father doesn't need much time. I guess our menta…

> this country has a long way to go to realizing that compassion can be profitable. Here's the problem: we're stuck in the mindset that profit is so important that we need it to be compatible with compassion or else we'll just sacrifice compassion.

Is it that, or is it that our economy is highly competitive and without government intervention with universal requirements those kinds of perks mean your product costs more relative to your competitor, meaning nobody buys your product?

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

#396

Post by mikestew » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

chromanoid wrote: post #276

codegeek wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolute Capitalism. Apparently, Americans have gotten used to it because supposedly the only other option to us is "Socialism". There is no middle ground. God forbid we ask for Capitalism with a little bit of social safety net.

[flagged]

I wish that victim-blaming quote would once and for all fade into it's rightful place of crap writing. It's as if that Canadian never spoke with an actual impoverished American.

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

#397

Post by doh » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

Earlier this year we established 16 week parental leave (all types of parents). For a small company like ours, this is not an easy decision, but I believe it will eventually pay off in the long run.

I'm originally from Europe and moved to states as an adult. My home country Slovakia, has very generous parental leave (up to 3 years[0]). I always struggled with the "ruthlessness" of US policies around healthcare, parental leave, education, etc.

I was very happy that the company finally matured enough that we could offer a parental leave without suffering the loss of a productive employee for an extended period.

We also adopted other European practices, like guaranteed severance after 3 months of "test" period with guaranteed healthcare (COBRA) for 2 months.

I honestly wish that these were a standard in this country, that this wouldn't be a differentiating factor for us, but I think we have quite long way to go.

[0] https://www.globalization-partners.com/globalpedia/slovak-re...

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

#398

Post by woodpanel » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

skrause wrote: post #116

woodpanel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can echo that. Still only 2% of men take the leave, while 42% of women do [1]. I can only speculate as to why. 1) Our cultural wiring runs deeper than just "sex is a social construct" 2) The German system is still quite complicated. As countless online calculators and private consultancies helping you filling out the forms prove. As well as the above statistic itself, since financially it would make more sense if t…

> Still only 2% of men take the leave, while 42% of women do [1]. This statistics is simply misleading. It says that 2% of the fathers with children under 3 years old are currently on parental leave at any given time. Let's say you split the 14 months of parental leave so that the mother takes 12 months and the father 2 months (which I commonly see). So within the first 36 months of the child's life there is a 2 in 3…

No, the statistics are pretty clear: The share of all parents who were on p/maternal leave during the 2018 microcensus. They don't claim anything else and are a pretty good approximation: How big a share of p/maternal leave offered do fathers and mothers take.

"which I commonly see" is not something that is statistically sound. And neither is just multiplying it. If fathers would on average take 1 month out of 24 offered this wouldn't exactly count as a success for the programme or gender equality.

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

#399

Post by pravda » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #144

woodpanel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can echo that. Still only 2% of men take the leave, while 42% of women do [1]. I can only speculate as to why. 1) Our cultural wiring runs deeper than just "sex is a social construct" 2) The German system is still quite complicated. As countless online calculators and private consultancies helping you filling out the forms prove. As well as the above statistic itself, since financially it would make more sense if t…

> Still only 2% of men take the leave, while 42% of women do [1]. > I can only speculate as to why. This is actually pretty simple: Germany's culture is still deeply rooted into old gender roles - father provider and mother educator. To give a context of the culture and legal system, as of today, unmarried fathers don't get legal custody automatically, and if they apply and the mother refuses, they need to go to cour…

>unmarried fathers don't get legal custody automatically,

Interesting. Do unmarried fathers have any financial responsibility for the child?

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

#400

Post by piva00 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

stkdump wrote: post #313

piva00 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 25% of the working German population earns less than around 2300€, 1800€ is, at minimum , a 22% reduction in salary for 75+% of the workers. The median is about ~4100€, so more than half of a pay cut for 50% of the working population. So yes, it's a good amount but still much less than the minimum 80% here in Sweden.

You are confusing net and gross salary.

No, I wasn't aware that it's 1800€ net, when I see figures on wage/benefits I always consider it pretax as that is how we talk about them in Sweden, never net salary.