Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#461

Post by systemtest » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

jredwards wrote: post #312

In the tech worker's paradise that is California, I'm preparing for my generous two weeks of paternity leave. My co-worker, having not been employed at the company for a year yet, is preparing to burn all four days of his vacation time because he's not entitled to paternity leave yet. This is broken.

As a tech worker in California, your income is triple to that of a Finnish tech worker. You can easily take unpaid time off for your paternity leave, perhaps even quit your job for a year, and still get out ahead.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#462

Post by Moru » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

jan_g wrote: post #364

Aunche wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 employm…

In European countries that do have paid parental leave, the system is funded by state and has attached a couple of constraints. One of those is that the payments to parents are capped. So, a person earning high salary won't get it in full during parental leave. Usually it's something like max. twice the average salary or something similar.

Another rule (in Sweden at least) is that a company when interviewing a new person is not allowed to ask about family planning. You can't ask if a woman is pregnant or planning to get kids soon. You are not allowed to fire someone that is pregnant and planning paid parental leave. This goes for both father and mother.

In general you as a father is expected to go on parental leave at minimum 3 months, if not 240 days. If you don't, people will look funny at you.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#463

Post by jimmaswell » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #450

jimmaswell wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is healthy for children to have both a mother and father who is actively present in their lives. Not sure how literally this was meant (and a lot of the rest of the thread assuming a mother/father) but studies show kids do just as well with two parents of any gender.

Please cite the studies. It seems at least impossible that babies of a male-male couple could do as well as those where the baby is raised by its biological mother even only because of the advantages of breastfeeding.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/06/children-...

Breastfeeding is one of many variables and formula has come a long way.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#464

Post by jariel » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #114

toasterlovin wrote: post #51

Earlier 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.

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.

" though probably not disappear entirely as the womb thing does still remain."

The implication that gender, family, and children begin and end with mechanical differences like 'womb' is really reductionist. That we are trying to make things fairer for people is a good thing, but it's become so dogmatic we can't consider other ways of looking at it ... is bad.

My prediction is that in 500 years, no matter what we do, we will still see quite substantial gender differentiation, particularly with respect to early childhood.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#465

Post by lacker » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

scrollbar wrote: post #373

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…

Not to downplay the importance of your fathering and nurturing your child's passions at all- My understanding of the research around personality development is that something like 80% (BS statistic I know) of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development. The early few years are when we get conditioned with the core emotional programming: "I am safe" vs. "I am at risk" - "I am lovable" vs. "I am unlov…

80% of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development.

There's just a huge difference between a 3-month-old baby, who can't recognize faces yet and spends most of the day sleeping and eating, and a 3-year-old child who is running, jumping, telling stories, making friends, and learning to read. For a 3-month-old baby, I doubt that parents do much more than a random babysitter. For a 3-year-old child, there is a clear difference.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#466

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

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 get that you genuinely care about the issue, but please don't take a thread like this veering into generic political flamebait. Parenting and child-rearing are emotional topics to begin with, so this pretty much guarantees a toxic cocktail.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247563.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#467

Post by SJSque » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

ipnon wrote: post #381

dadarepublic wrote: post #121

This is great news! With the current direction of US politics, as a US citizen, I find myself increasingly entertaining the thought of becoming an ex-pat. Top countries I've thought about have been the Nordic countries - Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland and have considered the Netherlands as well. They seem to have reasonable blended economies with social policies that make (more) sense. No countr…

I am in the same boat (pun intended). Just the cost of delivery without complications (>$10,000 on average in the US [0]) makes the prospect of having a child in a country with socialized healthcare economically sensible. Think of how much that $10,000 could be worth if invested in the stock market instead of in a healthcare plan's yearly revenue. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-hav...

Submitter here. I'm a British chap living in the Netherlands. You might want to read my comment [1] about what happens after you have a baby over here; it triggered quite a lot of discussion...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884787

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#468

Post by zackmorris » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 8:02 PM UTC

Ndymium wrote: post #435

zackmorris wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing anything about it, I'm inclined to think that it's a combination of Finland's offshore oil drilling income of at least $5.23 billion and their tax rate of 51.6%: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/fin/ https://tradingeconomics.com/finland/personal-income-tax-rat... The US has a lower top income tax rate of 37%: https://www.debt.org/tax/brackets/ Other more democratic socialism leaning countries redi…

> Finland's offshore oil drilling income of at least $5.23 billion Huh? We don't have any sources of oil. We do have oil refineries but not any wells or drilling. You may be thinking of Norway.

Ah thank you, sorry I thought that all Nordic countries had oil drilling. I stand by my statements on tax policy though.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#469

Post by satyrnein » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 8:03 PM UTC

blub wrote: post #450

jimmaswell wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is healthy for children to have both a mother and father who is actively present in their lives. Not sure how literally this was meant (and a lot of the rest of the thread assuming a mother/father) but studies show kids do just as well with two parents of any gender.

Please cite the studies. It seems at least impossible that babies of a male-male couple could do as well as those where the baby is raised by its biological mother even only because of the advantages of breastfeeding.

Please cite the studies on breastfeeding. Most show very little long term benefit (meaning, excluding upset stomachs in the first year of life and similar).

Example article:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/20/is-brea...

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#470

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 05, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

brazilianabroad wrote: post #21

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

But will they force Dads to take it? As a Dad who had two kids, I would much rather pay for childcare than take paternity leave. Would someone like me be held back artificially to promote equality? EDIT: Not a freak, don't care for the infant stage. Happy to dote when they start to turn into people.

You'd rather pay people to be with your kids than be with your kids? Wow Yeah I'd guess you'd be held back from being a crap dad

Crossing into personal attack like that will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN, we'd be grateful.