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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

#331

Post by Zitrax »

gylterud wrote: post #109

When we had our first child (in Sweden), we could divide the time (13 months total) freely between the two of us. Then we got some extra money if each of us took more than 30% of that time. I think they stopped with the money bonus, but it was really great for us. We are now having our second child (now in Norway), and while the father quota is great, they now require the mother to be "in activity" (i.e. working) if…

Yes in Norway I as a father only got 10 days in total due to that rule while in Sweden I would have got 240 (if split equally), quite a difference.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#332

Post by rsynnott »

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…

"We shouldn't make things better because one person might do something weird at some point".

I mean, really, how do people think like this?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#333

Post by jonplackett »

petercooper wrote: post #240

I'm a dad (of three) and I am not convinced that time spent at the very start of their lives is as significant as that later in their lives (note the "as", I am not saying it has no value!) when you can really nurture their passions, knowledge, etc. I did spend a lot of time with my children in their earliest days because it was the right thing to do, but I don't feel either they or I particularly gained from it (tha…

I think this is missing the point of equal parental leave and how it creates equality - it's for the mum just as much as the dad, so she can now get a bit of her life back earlier.

I took 3 months leave (wish it was more) when my daughter was born, spread out through the year a month at a time. I loved each month for different reasons and I know each month helped me understand what my wife was dealing with better and the slog of looking after a baby as well as the fun bits, and it helped her understand me better too - she really missed our daughter when she did a month's work and saw how going to work every day wasn't such great a holiday from childcare as she thought!

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#334

Post by iso1631 »

kraigie wrote: post #166
gfs78 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but they still need to get his job done

Hence temps. Or they can redistribute the salary as overtime. If there are enough interested workers.

They just employed someone for a full time job because they needed to spend €x on someone to do Y work

Now they don't have to pay that money, which is fine, but they then need to find someone on a 14 month contract that will do it for the same salary as the person they just employed.

Then at the end of it they are left with paying an overlap from the contractor to someone new

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#335

Post by ryanmercer »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #235
ryanmercer wrote: post #126

I know I'm going to be downvoted and already regret deciding to share this but... I've never understood parental leave. If I want to go on a vacation, I have to plan for that and save time to use for it. If you want to have a child, you should have to plan to save your time to take and spend with the child or be in a financial place where one parent can quit their job to stay with the child. It's not like you go to s…

Because it's not about individuals making good or bad decisions, but about building a good, equal society. And importantly this means caring for children as a collective society.

Both of my parents worked full time and my mother went back to work very shortly after having me. I was plenty cared for without my parents sitting at home with me for weeks or months.

Pretty much all of my friends with kids the women went back to work within a few weeks and the men didn't take time off.

I can't see how sitting at home with a child that will have no memories of you sitting at home with them, that will sleep half the day and cry the other half, for 12 weeks (U.S. FMLA) or 14 months (apparently Germany) will make any significant difference in the child's adult life.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#336

Post by baroomba »

_jal wrote: post #300
keanzu wrote: post #175

> noticed about Norway when we were in Oslo A lot can be achieved when your country floats on oil. The Government Pension Fund Global, aka the Oil Fund, was worth about $195,000 per Norwegian citizen in 2018. If others had this kind of safety net they might behave in a similar manner. Petrostates can afford a lot of leisure time for their citizens.

> Petrostates can afford a lot of leisure time for their citizens So what's the United State's excuse? (A lot of US citizens are somehow unaware of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ... )

> So what's the United State's excuse?

Massive, continual, and ongoing failure to capture any significant part of the outgoing and diminishing value of the ground under our feet for the future needs of citizens, thereby reducing the wealth of our country as a whole so a few people can capture all the benefit of that lost stored wealth, rather than merely almost all of it?

It's not just oil—anything non-renewable coming out of the ground ought to pay into a trust fund like Norway's. We had a huge amount of it—oil, coal, minerals—and still have quite a bit, but we can't even figure out how to have anything resembling an OECD-standard healthcare system so I reckon a fix for that's not gonna enter the public debate for decades yet, if ever, meanwhile the stored value in our physical country itself drops every day.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#337

Post by Aunche »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #162

As an American, I find it hard to be patriotic about my country when my fellow citizens can’t muster up the political will to ensure any paid parental leave for most people. Edit: changed parental leave to paid parental leave

I'm not opposed to paid parental leave, but it's not equitable at all. It benefits the rich the most, and may even punish the poor. For example, there's no reason a senior investment banker should be paid high 6 figures to take care of their kids. They should have more than enough money saved up themselves to take unpaid time off. Meanwhile, the most vulnerable will have are even harder time finding full time employment as companies will have less incentive to grant it to them. Something like a guaranteed $500 a week for 20 weeks from the government makes a lot more sense.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#338

Post by brewdad »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #214
the_af wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

A counterpoint: A friend of mine had a kid a year ago and he found it impossible to take care of the baby when he tried being the caretaker while the mom was away (can't breastfeed, milk in a bottle is not the same). The experience has convinced him equal parental leave is a terrible idea.

So because your friend wasn't willing to put in the effort to learn how to be a good parent (no one is born knowing this stuff), no man should have to opportunity to do so?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#339

Post by the_af »

seneca wrote: post #305
the_af wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the erosion of wages as a consequence of womens' entry into the workplace has actually taken away the choice of being a full-time mum for many, by forcing them to work. I don't buy this narrative, sorry. Also, of course women who want to stay at home taking care of the babies while the father is less involved in child-rearing are perfectly welcome to do it. It's just that I think it's unfair that society expect…

> I don't buy this narrative, sorry. I think you may have missed their point, as there's not much to "buy". I hadn't considered it before, and it strikes me as interesting. I believe what they're saying is that women being introduced into the work force en-masse, and therefore nearly doubling the working population, has driven down wages. The lower wages made it harder for a single bread-winner to support a family, w…

> as there's not much to "buy"

Well, you have to buy that the data actually supports this (which your last sentence implies it's not a given) and there's the implication that women voluntarily entering into the workforce have somehow made things worse for other women; that's the implied "narrative". And of course, that women in the workforce are a major factor in lowering wages, and that there are no ways to stop the erosion of wages without driving women away from the workforce. As you can see, there are many narratives at play here that you can either buy into or not.

The comment of the person I was replying to also completely ignored the question of whether fathers actually want to take a more active part in the raising of their children, and whether society supports this decision.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#340

Post by zajio1am »

weinzierl wrote: post #70

In Germany it is the parents who get the leave and they can freely decide who takes the 12 months of it. Even better yet: If they decide to split they get an extra of two months, so 14 in total.

In Czechia, there is similar approach to paid parental leave, but it is up to 36 months.

I think that this is much better to left it to parents to decide how to split that based on their personal preferences, than to force equal split in all cases.

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