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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

#521

Post by scrollbar »

kgwgk wrote: post #383
scrollbar wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> something like 80% (BS statistic I know) of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development And how much in the first five months?

Hey, good question. My gut says to go reference that book I mentioned and make a guess for you. The author talks about the different stages of attachment and how it affects the forming brain. I'll try when I get home tonight.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#522

Post by fipar »

growlist wrote: post #223
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…

I think it's worth pointing out that in the midst of this brave new world - where every woman is supposedly a kick-ass world-beating entrepreneur if only the damned patriarchy would get off her back - there are plenty of women that have zero interest in having a career, and see the point of their existence as being to have children and be a mother to them; and the erosion of wages as a consequence of womens' entry in…

I'm not so sure a lot of women had the choice of being full-time mothers and have good living standards. My mother worked, and so did her mother, and both households required both parents working to make ends meet.

I'm also not sure there has been wage erosion. Since I've been alive, wages have only been going up. However, cost of living has also been going up, and at a faster rate than wages. So while I don't have any source to support my hunch, I'd guess the problem is that living is more expensive than it ever was, not that women entered the workforce.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#523

Post by rtkwe »

lopmotr wrote: post #513
rtkwe wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's a pattern you see in most places with any kind of shared pool. The father takes a small, frequently the legal minimum time, and the mother takes the rest. Ultimately it kind of makes the most sense because it is the woman that's gone through the most work of giving birth and is a natural food source for the kid but it does perpetuate the issue of women's careers being set back by having a kid.

When they have that much freedom, can you really call it "perpetuating the issue" instead of "doing what they want"? It's not an issue for the women who prefer to do it, or they wouldn't be doing it.

It's not entirely a choice it's socially usually seen as weird for the guy to take more than the minimum or some small portion above that in many of these places. And even if it is a completely free choice (when do those ever exist?) the impact to women's careers extend beyond the setback from leaving the workforce for several months because they're still expected to do more of the labor of child rearing.

edit: To expand ultimately societies and governments need women to have kids, as of now they're the only ones who can after all so I think eliminating as many downsides as possible to that is something that should be done.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#524

Post by lazyasciiart »

baddox wrote: post #491
gamblor956 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?" --> "Don't hire people during their most economically productive ages." Not an economically viable strategy for any company looking to stay in business more than a year or two.

Surely whether it's "their most economically productive age" would depend heavily on how many children they have and how much parental leave they are allowed.

Ah, so "don't hire people who are planning to have multiple children at the peak of their potential economic productivity"?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#525

Post by yhoiseth »

sudders wrote: post #455
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 you miss the biggest point. This will have a significant impact on the wages of women. As suddenly women are not longer at a disadvantage when companies need to decide who to hire for a certain position.

I think you're right in that women's disadvantage decreases, but I don't think it vanishes entirely. As an example, consider the problems many women experience during pregnancy, which is likely to affect their performance at work.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#526

Post by durandal1 »

lbriner wrote: post #505
sonofhans wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive? Not for a good company. I've had several employees go on maternity and paternity leave. I've given them respect, and time, and money, in order to make this time of their lives as unstressful as possible. I've done it because it's the right thing, but these people remember being treated well. They've come back to work and done…

So you had good people that you wanted to get back? Great. A lot of us employ people who are just average and cannot afford to pay them multiple thousands while they are on leave, paying someone else to cover them, and then they could always decide to leave anyway.

If you can't afford an employee going on paternity/maternity leave, you have an unsustainable business.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#527

Post by the_af »

nailer wrote: post #363
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…

> Child bearing is only an initial factor; after the baby is out it goes away. Men do not produce milk.

Why did you selectively quote me to exclude the part where I mentioned breastfeeding?

Besides, some women don't produce milk either, or not enough of it. Bonding with a parent is not exclusive to breastfeeding, either (though of course it helps!).

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#528

Post by conanbatt »

aetimmes wrote: post #496
conanbatt wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a bet receiver of funds, who is the net giver?

I don't understand the question. Can you elaborate?

If you dont have the money to take 6 times off, who is giving you the money to do so?

The basic economic question of giving someone money is that you are taking it from someone else. Is it childless employees? Is it taxes? Is it the unemployed?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#529

Post by m0zg »

sudders wrote: post #455
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 you miss the biggest point. This will have a significant impact on the wages of women. As suddenly women are not longer at a disadvantage when companies need to decide who to hire for a certain position.

That's only true if men actually take the leave, which in a large percentage of cases is not going to happen. The unspoken truth about leave is, you can forget about that promotion you were angling for if you take a couple of months of leave, for whatever reason. So men by and large won't take it, especially when they find themselves under pressure to earn more and provide. I did take my 6 weeks in the US though when we had our son 16 years ago, but only because he wouldn't sleep and the first few months were very rough, so career plans were put on hold.

Also, women will still leave the workplace in droves to care for newborns and the young. That's just what a lot of them prefer to do, and I think it's the right ordering of priorities, for both parents. There's really no way to properly rear young children if both parents have full-time jobs and actually try to advance their careers at the same time.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FM.NE.ZS?en...

That having been said, I'm glad this is being introduced. In difficult cases like ours, for instance, this would have been huge help, for reasons not entirely related to work.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#530

Post by mto »

Well, in Austria you can get up to three years paid leave and freely choose between parents, so not sure if the article is correct. Question is how much the payment is, we get less the longer we take it. Alternatively you can also take a year (also with +2 months if both parents use it) and get 80% of your previous salary.
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