The US, federally, already gives dads he same parental leave as moms.
(It's crap, but it's the same crap.)
Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
111–120 of 617 posts
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#112Seems a bit bizarre seeing that mothers in most cases will need to spend more time with their babies. After all, there are certain things like breastfeeding that only a mother can do.
> After all, there are certain things like breastfeeding Mother's can and do express milk to be fed to babies in bottles; the fact that a baby is on breastmilk doesn't require the mother to be with them 24/7, and formula is a thing that exists. What other things are there?
Formula that adjusts formulation every day by detecting the chemical balance of the baby during nursing does not exist yet (ever? It’s an interesting biology challenge).
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#113Many comments laud this as a step towards gender equality, which is a noble goal. However, I do wonder about the unforeseen consequences. All mammals (afaik) are raised by mothers. Humans are mammals. Humans do a good job of making changes to our nature, and for the most part those changes have resulted in better lives. However we still have things like nuclear families. Children aren't taken away from parents and ra…
Under Finland's system mother are still given maternal leave, but the fathers now get mandatory leave too. That's how I understood it, no country would forbid the mother maternal leave, except maybe the US.
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#114> Finland says it wants to "promote wellbeing and gender equality" Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave.
> Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave. The asymmetry of experience is actually caused by child bearing, which can only be done by women. Maternal leave is downstream from that.
That doesn't seem right.
If months of parental leave are granted to mothers but not to fathers (something not decided by who has the womb), we should expect to see motherhood being more damaging to a career than fatherhood.
If parental leave is offered equally to mothers and fathers, we should expect the disparity to shrink, though probably not disappear entirely as the womb thing does still remain.
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave. The asymmetry of experience is actually caused by child bearing, which can only be done by women. Maternal leave is downstream from that.
Right now all an employer sees is time off. In Finland that means there is no difference to the employer.
I assume the health insurance costs of actually having a baby are quite non-trivial. Of course men tend to get e.g. heart attacks and the like, especially as they age, so I suppose it all balances out in the end.
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work. At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks tim…
The goal is probably more to reach equal pay/opportunity as opposed to any population growth agenda. When I was in the EU, I knew a woman who had 4 kids, each ~1/1.5 year appart. So she would have a kid, be out 6 month, go back to work for 6 month, have another kid, rinse and repeat 4 times :) . It was a total nightmare for her employer because they couldn't let her go, and they couldn't hire anyone permanently to do…
Not sure that this was the real intent. Germany was notorious for having many stay at home mothers.
So women had to chose between family and career, which partly explains the low birth rate. Actually it is still the case because school finishes around 2 pm, so many parents (often the mother) have to work part time because of that.
An indirect consequence maybe a decrease of the gender salary gap, but I doubt this was the main purpose...
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939272/
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Looks like you guys have reached a deadlock :) It's not all about IQ though. Breastmilk works way better than formula for general health, it helps the baby fight infections and build a good immune system.
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#118> Finland says it wants to "promote wellbeing and gender equality" Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave.
> Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave. The asymmetry of experience is actually caused by child bearing, which can only be done by women. Maternal leave is downstream from that.
Disagreed. Child bearing is only an initial factor; after the baby is out it goes away. The problem is breastfeeding, but there are ways around that (and some mothers, for a variety of reasons or impediments, don't breastfeed; in that case it's completely moot).
So minus breastfeeding, the asymmetry has a large component of "it was always done like this", plus the mistaken idea some employers have that the leave is some sort of "vacation".
As a new father: quality time with my baby is a huge deal and it's unfair that society expects the mom to do all the work (and spend all that time). I think this should be a concern for all fathers; I find my friends who don't prioritize this and dump it on the mother are behaving in an insensitive way. They get to work on "real stuff" and interact with other adults -- even commuting to work can feel like a respite from caring for a newborn -- and when they get home they don't understand why the mother is burned out and grumpy: "but you stayed at home while I worked, why are you so tired and upset?"
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#119Germany has this and is awesome. 14 months paid leave to distribute among the two parents.
I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work. At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks tim…
> I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work.
Don't take this the wrong way, but that is such an American way of thinking. You guys are so preoccupied with thinking about somebody getting something they don't deserve that you forget about thinking about what is good for everybody else.
Consider this, Nordic countries have generous public services in all walks of life. If we applied American logic to Nordic countries we should expect the following outcomes:
1. Nobody works, because unemployment benefits are so generous. 2. Everybody is on never ending education, because education is next to free. 3. Everybody has 10 kids because of long parental leaves. 4. Everybody is sick and unhealthy because nobody cares about their health because hey health care is free.
Of course no Nordic countries is anything like this. We have the highest work participation rate in the world (more than supposedly hard working Japanese). Nordic people are quite healthy and live long. Most people just have 2 kids. The average birth rate is something like 1.7 to 1.8 in Nordics. In other words we are under replacement.
So our system definitely helps getting more kids as countries with less generous services have much lower birth rates. Look e.g. at developed asian countries how terrible their birth rates are. Yet the generous system does not lead to some abundance of kids.
Let us get real. Having kids is a lot of work. I love my kids to bits but I don't want more than two. I also enjoy my work and other things. So does my wife. Why would we want tons of kids? Some weirdos probably do, but so what? Why should not I and other Norwegian benefit from a great system because a couple of oddballs exist than abuse the system?
Put some trust in your fellow man. People are not all selfish and self centered assholes ready to take, take and take whatever they can get their hands on.
Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
#120Many comments laud this as a step towards gender equality, which is a noble goal. However, I do wonder about the unforeseen consequences. All mammals (afaik) are raised by mothers. Humans are mammals. Humans do a good job of making changes to our nature, and for the most part those changes have resulted in better lives. However we still have things like nuclear families. Children aren't taken away from parents and ra…
We used to live in caves and evolving past that touched off a chain of events that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. But we don't lament our evolution. Living indoors, while messy with unintended side effects if you choose to look at it that way, is something we value.