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Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

bbc.com

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Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#181

Post by jve »

sandos wrote: post #143
jve wrote: post #30

> Neighbouring Sweden has Europe's most generous system of parental leave with 240 days each after a baby's birth That's working days or what? In Latvia (Estonia neighbour) you may get 12 months (60% of money calculated from amount BEFORE taxes) or 18 months (43,75%). And dad can leave, too. https://likumi.lv/ta/en/en/id/38051-on-maternity-and-sicknes... Section 10.6. Amount of Parental Benefit

Also Sweden gives ~80% of normal income. If you mean 60% of [income before tax] without taxes, thats pretty good.

> If you mean 60% of [income before tax] without taxes

Yes. And +171 Eur no matter what.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#182

Post by frobozz »

zozbot234 wrote: post #115
LatteLazy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fortunately Finland has a healthcare system, so there is no difference to the employer.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#183

Post by brnt »

romaaeterna wrote: post #142

My family is of Norwegian extraction and I'm a dad too. My wife has a completely different relationship with my kids than I do. She also had to go through a great deal more to birth them than I did. Her parental leave was as much about medical recovery as it was bonding time with the kids. And, to put this delicately, but as something that needs to be stated because it's true and important for the discussion: she has…

At no point did the poster wish (or anyone arguing for gender equality) for a kid to have identical relationships with parents. It is about each gender being able to invest as much time as the other (if they so chose), thereby making sure each relationship has the potential to reach the same depth (barely present father has been a trope for a very long time) and does not force one gender to sacrifice their carriers over the other (because getting children often boils down to that, and the numbers backing that up are contested by nobody).

In other words, you chose to attack a straw-man, and it is important for the discussion that you don't. Whenever I see a man doing that I assume that he is likely not very interested in hearing about problems others do experience.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#184

Post by socialdemocrat »

baby_wipe wrote: post #61

I strongly dislike the idea of any government-mandated paternal leave. Staying home from work is not free, and the cost of it comes out of my salary. I personally want some paternal leave even with its costs, but I'd prefer that negotiation to stay between me and my employer. I don't want some bottom threshold set by a third party.

You are paid in Nordic countries during the leave, so that is a non-issue. Sure indirectly you are paying through your taxes.

But for society as a whole this makes financial sense. In Nordic countries we have the worlds highest female labour participation rate. That is a lot of extra tax dollars.

It also means higher birth rate which benefits the economy. Look at asian countries with birth rates around 1.2 which where slow at adopting these kinds of systems. Nordic countries are more like 1.8.

Over time such a low birth rate will be a huge financial burden for a country. Any taxes you saved from not having paternal leave will be lost in taxes to pay for caring for a huge elderly population.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#186

Post by sandos »

wincy wrote: post #40
sudoaza wrote: post #2

Germany 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…

Sweden has an even more generous system and our birth rates are below 2, so... I'm not worried for Finland.

The thing is, kids are damned expensive today. When you are not working, you are forgoing "normal" salary. The mother will get ~80% of the pre-pregnancy salary, up to a limit which is not very high. There are afaik no "virtual salary increases" here, at all. We even have "barnbidrag" and "flerbarnstillägg" meaning you get a small amount of money per month per child, and that amount goes UP with more kids. So if you have 7 kids you get even more money per child than if you would have 2 kids. Still nobody has 7 kids to "make money", because its still a loosing proposition. There is a template about how much a kid costs here until theyre 18, and its about $104,000.

Sure, you could stay at home and being poor for 10 years or so but how much fun is that really? =)

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#187

Post by whatshisface »

romaaeterna wrote: post #142

My family is of Norwegian extraction and I'm a dad too. My wife has a completely different relationship with my kids than I do. She also had to go through a great deal more to birth them than I did. Her parental leave was as much about medical recovery as it was bonding time with the kids. And, to put this delicately, but as something that needs to be stated because it's true and important for the discussion: she has…

How do you go from "men and women are different" to "fathers shouldn't spend time with their children?"

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#188

Post by bantunes »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #123
zozbot234 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still enable them in ways that don't involve working at a formal job. Doing chores, dealing with household issues, that kind of thing. Having a kid generally means that there's a lot of stressful work to do around the house, and you would be in the right position to deal with that.

All of that has been hired out, because my job enables me to. I do work I enjoy so I don’t have to do work I don’t enjoy.

I find it puzzling that someone would choose to embark on the paternity experience, but be very selective about what to experience. Life is not just what we like, and understanding that makes us more balanced individuals. One might think you're spoiled and incapable of dealing with adversity.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#189

Post by keanzu »

romaaeterna wrote: post #142

My family is of Norwegian extraction and I'm a dad too. My wife has a completely different relationship with my kids than I do. She also had to go through a great deal more to birth them than I did. Her parental leave was as much about medical recovery as it was bonding time with the kids. And, to put this delicately, but as something that needs to be stated because it's true and important for the discussion: she has…

> I find that this "gender equality" push

Which one:

  Equality of opportunity
  Equality of outcome
Many people, me included, feel that equality of opportunity is foundational to modern society and highly desirable.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#190

Post by kraigie »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #172
codingmess wrote: post #141

"to get fathers to spend time with their children" I'm all for fathers spending time with their children, but this kind of framing annoys me. The feminist narrative, which governments seem to swallow, is that fathers don't want to spend time with their children, and force mothers out of their careers. The reality is probably that it is primarily a financial issue. Fathers spending more time with their children means…

> The feminist narrative, which governments seem to swallow, is that fathers don't want to spend time with their children, and force mothers out of their careers. I think that is all in your head because you are so anti feminism. Look we have been through this in Norway for years now. Reality is that many men felt uncomfortable making that choice because there was an expectation in society that staying home with your…

I do wonder if Norway has a different Pension/benefit scheme.

Or if they need ever greater numbers to keep the benefits paying out like UK/US.

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