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French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

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

#321

Post by marcusverus »

echelon wrote: post #284
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…

A company has to pay workers for 49 - 59 weeks without getting any work? I'm all for parental leave, but that's a full year. Does the government subsidize this? That expense could sink a small company. What happens if the workers leave the company after getting the benefit? I'm really curious how European firms compete with American ones when workers can take so much time off and saddle their companies with so much r…

Folks love to talk about these marginal 'perks' in Social Democracies, and the benefits experienced by the least fortunate, but you never hear about the costs of these programs or their impact on the finances of the average household. All these great benefits are, of course, funded via massive taxation of the middle and upper classes. You can see the (relative) impact in the data, which reveal household incomes to be ~40% lower than in the US , household debts which are ~double than US household debts, and household savings which are half those in the US:

Household Income in US dollars (2018) [3]: Denmark - $34,712 Norway - $39,555 Finland - $34,497 Sweden - $34,301 Iceland - Not reported USA - $50,292

Household Debt as % of disposable income (2015-2018) [1]: Denmark - 281% Norway - 239% Finland - 145% Sweden - 189% Iceland - Not reported USA - 105%

Household Net worth as % of net income (2014) [2]: Denmark - 553% ($191,900) [1]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm [2]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-net-worth.htm#indicator-... [3]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm#in...

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

#322

Post by kodablah »

jahaja wrote: post #316
kodablah wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint also in fly over country w/ a 4 month old, I was basically given as much time as I wanted. Granted I only took a few weeks because I was jonesing to get back, but I have peers that have taken months off. This isn't to discount your general point about lack of compassion, just to discount what seemed to be the assumption that it is always the case and/or is related to the middle of the country.

Why can't you use the remaining amount of time at a later date?

I'm sure I could. My employer doesn't mind anything within reason, there's no max vacation or anything. I sympathize w/ GP as their employer is more strict, I just wanted to add my anecdote so others reading don't assume 100% of employers are like that (granted, most likely are).

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

#323

Post by ben_w »

sokoloff wrote: post #278
ben_w wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any nation with a mandatory retirement age/state pension that normal people live long enough to revive for at least one year, necessarily has enough money to let typical parents look after their kids for at least six months per parent per child.

Necessarily has enough money to pay the social security amounts for that time (in exchange for pushing everyone’s full retirement age back by two years, not one [0]) The bigger problem is I think the average US SS beneficiary takes home around $1400/mo (and they would be Medicare-eligible, unlike most new parents). My mortgage alone is a substantial multiple of $1400/mo. [0] The one year for one year trade ignores th…

I don’t see why you are counting future earnings rather than present earnings.

Thought experiment: imagine next year from Jan 1st to Dec 31st, literally every 25-year old stops working and simultaneously everyone who was due to retire in that year has their retirement delayed by one year.

The total size of the workforce remains constant.

If this became a permanent feature of society [0], GDP, average corporate income, and tax revenue, would all be constant.

Private pensions as well as states pensions would also pay out less in total, as there would be less years between retirement and death. How much would your pension pay, relative to parental leave, if someone equivalent to you were to reach pension age today? Because that’s the amount available for paternity in this thought experiment, not the number that your actual pension will be worth when you reach pension age.

[0] For a one-off year it would appear higher, but that’s an illusion caused by old people having more experience and therefore higher productivity and income; it obviously wouldn’t remain true once those 25-year-olds with one fewer years of experience each became 65.

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

#324

Post by nmfisher »

marcusverus wrote: post #321
echelon wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company has to pay workers for 49 - 59 weeks without getting any work? I'm all for parental leave, but that's a full year. Does the government subsidize this? That expense could sink a small company. What happens if the workers leave the company after getting the benefit? I'm really curious how European firms compete with American ones when workers can take so much time off and saddle their companies with so much r…

Folks love to talk about these marginal 'perks' in Social Democracies, and the benefits experienced by the least fortunate, but you never hear about the costs of these programs or their impact on the finances of the average household. All these great benefits are, of course, funded via massive taxation of the middle and upper classes. You can see the (relative) impact in the data, which reveal household incomes to be…

And interestingly, no apparent difference in fertility rate compared with the USA.

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

#325

Post by sokoloff »

ben_w wrote: post #323
sokoloff wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Necessarily has enough money to pay the social security amounts for that time (in exchange for pushing everyone’s full retirement age back by two years, not one [0]) The bigger problem is I think the average US SS beneficiary takes home around $1400/mo (and they would be Medicare-eligible, unlike most new parents). My mortgage alone is a substantial multiple of $1400/mo. [0] The one year for one year trade ignores th…

I don’t see why you are counting future earnings rather than present earnings. Thought experiment: imagine next year from Jan 1st to Dec 31st, literally every 25-year old stops working and simultaneously everyone who was due to retire in that year has their retirement delayed by one year. The total size of the workforce remains constant. If this became a permanent feature of society [0], GDP, average corporate income…

I take your point on not accounting for interest growth. Well explained. Thank you.

My actual retirement is my defined contribution 401(k) account. The amount I put in now grows until I draw it down in retirement. There’s no one who will give me a year of their 401(k) drawdown, of course. What 401(k) money I and my wife don’t spend is part of our estate and inherited just like any other type of private savings.

Defined benefit plans (“private pensions”) are rare (and becoming more rare) for the current workforce.

Social Security is more than a rounding error in the retirement picture, but it’s by far the minority of income for most professional jobs. That’s literally the only “pension style money” that’s available to me and it’s about $1400/mo as far as I can tell. That's not going to take the typical 25-year old new parent very far I don't think. (It's slightly over the federal minimum wage for one full-time worker.)

Edit to add some stats/refs:

[0] - 4% of private sectors workers have only defined-benefit plan (down from 60% in the 1980s) 14% of private sector employees have access to both - https://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/pensions_basics.money...

[1] - https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/factsheet/defined-benefit-frozen....

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

#326

Post by AniseAbyss »

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…

Most fathers wouldn't want 6 months leave. You would literally have to make it mandatory.

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

#327

Post by bwb »

marcusverus wrote: post #321
echelon wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company has to pay workers for 49 - 59 weeks without getting any work? I'm all for parental leave, but that's a full year. Does the government subsidize this? That expense could sink a small company. What happens if the workers leave the company after getting the benefit? I'm really curious how European firms compete with American ones when workers can take so much time off and saddle their companies with so much r…

Folks love to talk about these marginal 'perks' in Social Democracies, and the benefits experienced by the least fortunate, but you never hear about the costs of these programs or their impact on the finances of the average household. All these great benefits are, of course, funded via massive taxation of the middle and upper classes. You can see the (relative) impact in the data, which reveal household incomes to be…

Taxes in the usa are not accurate above, you need to add in healthcare and social security type payments too. Our tax rate is as high with those things included.

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

#328

Post by AniseAbyss »

matsemann wrote: post #294
echelon wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company has to pay workers for 49 - 59 weeks without getting any work? I'm all for parental leave, but that's a full year. Does the government subsidize this? That expense could sink a small company. What happens if the workers leave the company after getting the benefit? I'm really curious how European firms compete with American ones when workers can take so much time off and saddle their companies with so much r…

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…

Can confirm, social media is checked to make certain someone isn't pregnant or trying to get pregnant.

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

#329

Post by jahaja »

kodablah wrote: post #322
jahaja wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you use the remaining amount of time at a later date?

I'm sure I could. My employer doesn't mind anything within reason, there's no max vacation or anything. I sympathize w/ GP as their employer is more strict, I just wanted to add my anecdote so others reading don't assume 100% of employers are like that (granted, most likely are).

Fair enough. My point is that for people in the US (and countries with similar regulations) they seem to assume that parental leave is something that must be done directly connected to the birth of the child, and when that's up there's no going back. The story is very different here in Sweden where people can save their "parental days" for years if they so chose.

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

#330

Post by rags2riches »

scandinavegan wrote: post #301
black_knight wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When my daughter was young (in Sweden), this system was in effect, but was calculated per calendar year and not on the total number of days. We took around half the number of days each, but because we switched close to the new year, it looked like each year was like one week for one parent and the rest for the other, highly uneven both years. I don't know if that was a quirk of the system that they fixed or not, but…

Yes, though in total the split between myself and my partner was pretty much even, we got one of the "equality bonus" amounts and missed the others. It was hard to understand how it worked, we did not plan with it in mind and when it happened it seemed pretty random. I haven't kept up to date with the rules but I think they just quietly scrapped the "equality bonus" idea. I'm glad they did. While I am certainly happy I had the opportunity to be with my children because of the system, I do not miss all the hours spent trying to plan with all the rules in mind. My dream system would be a lump sum and the right to take unpaid time off work while the children are young...
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