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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

#571

Post by rglullis »

codingmess wrote: post #544
rglullis wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"gives" after taking almost double in taxes. And I will surely have more years paying tons of taxes than paternity leaves. Forgive them, Milton, for they don't know what they are saying.

What do you mean by "taking double in taxes"? Yes, parents also pay taxes, although usually less than single people because of the "split income". It is still a net transfer of money from single people to parents. (Not only for parental leave, also schools for example, or even free childcare in many places).

I mean that literally. OP said that the govt pays up to 20000 EUR in Elterngeld, and I can show you tax returns where I paid almost double that in a single year.

I don't get what is so difficult or controversial about my statement here. Whether Elterngeld or "free" childcare, there is no "giving" by the government of anything, that is all.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#572

Post by raydev »

sneak wrote: post #560
Lev1a wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thirdly, the cost is not large. Businesses are already absorbing the lost productivity caused by the fathers being exhausted. This formalizes it. In our project management course we learned a rule of thumb that for new parents you have ~25-30% less FTE available during the first year of the child's life (due to care for sick children, getting sick themselves, being exhausted from lack of sleep etc.)

This seems like a sound argument for avoiding hiring people who might become parents soon. 30% less output for the same amount of pay seems like a bad deal for an employer.

The employer will be fine with 30% reduced output.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#573

Post by [deleted] »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #546
MadWombat wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids True. But now it is a risk to hire people in certain age groups in general. Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?

* Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?* No. The only real way to avoid this is to just not hire folks who can birth or father children. You'd be mostly safe hiring folks over 45 (Though men over 45 would be more risky than women). This probably isn't a good strategy for an employer. Marriage doesn't lend itself to children: Having sex does. Having a stable relatio…

[deleted]

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#574

Post by saiya-jin »

balfirevic wrote: post #434
saiya-jin wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, after. I want them to thrive, but they're not at an age yet where I can fully appreciate time with them. You know that first 3 years of our lives are most forming on our deeper personalities. How people are calm, energized, focused, or somehow broken... they have started developing personalities while still in the womb. That they have no verbal way to express themselves doesn't mean anything. They do appreciate…

> You know that first 3 years of our lives are most forming on our deeper personalities. Do you have any citations or source for that?

Nobody ever did a full A/B study on that, it would require damaging many babies for rest of their lives. We're over Mengele's approach for quite some time and time machine isn't a thing yet.

But there are tons of stories that babies neglected/suffering perform much worse for rest of their lives. Deep mental issues, lower IQ etc. Some proof might be stories I read from some specifically cruel communist Romania orphanage, where children were neglected, often caged or chained. Something like 90% of them struggled significantly in the society in their later lives.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#576

Post by growse »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #555
growse wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to have 10,000 people working for you to be able to afford to hire cover for when people going on parental leave. 10 people or 10,000 people, if you can't afford your staff going on parental leave / long term sick / vacation, you don't have a sustainable business.

> if you can't afford your staff going on parental leave / long term sick, you don't have a sustainable business You've never run a startup or small business. At the beginning margins can be razor thin, and unplanned or extended leave can have a huge impact.

There's plenty of small business owners who are perfectly capable of managing the risk of losing staff for whatever reason without it sinking the company. Many business run at a big loss when starting up, never mind razor thin margins. The ones that survive manage their investors, debts, cashflow and staff risk properly.

If you run a business on the assumption that you're going to have all your current employees working for you continuously for the foreseeable future, you're going to have a bad time.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#577

Post by socialdemocrat »

dang wrote: post #444
socialdemocrat wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stupidity of people these days. This was literally an article about Finland and paternal leave. A country which has no oil. Literally EVERY single Nordic country has this kind of system. Not just Norway. And Norway had this BEFORE we had any oil. Never mind the whole inconsistency in your rant. Why do you think the oil fund is so F...ing huge? Because we DON'T spend a lot of oil money. We save it.

Please don't respond to a bad comment with a worse one. It helps nothing—it only makes the thread worse yet. The last thing we need here is nationalistic flamewar, and when it comes to flamewar, the second escalation is often the turning point and therefore the thing most to be avoided. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry, but unless it was clear I was not attacking any country. I was trying to stand up for fellow Finland, not attacking it .

But I should not have suggested there are stupid people. One should stick to arguing the case.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#578

Post by socialdemocrat »

codingmess wrote: post #543
socialdemocrat wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There are not many countries where you get full pay. Full pay makes it a different matter. And again, I am all for fathers taking time off to spend with their kids. I just think the narrative is harmful. Harmful to women, actually, who tend to be forced out of their motherhood privileges by well-meaning laws. As for "fathers feeling uncomfortable", I am not buying it. That is just in people's head and could be remedi…

Think whatever you want but the statistics is very clear on this. When time got reserved just for men it significantly increased the number of dads taking parental leave and who extended it.

For countries who have tried this it is very popular and it has been considered a success.

Parents really like it.

It is not just “mild uneasiness” For many countries it has significant career repercussions to prioritize family. I know many Nordics who while living in the US who experience that they are not taken serious by their boss if they priority family.

You can even find plenty of Americans living in Nordics who can attest to this. If you prioritize family you are considered as not taking your career serious.

I mean American bosses freak out when people are away for more than 1-2 weeks.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#579

Post by socialdemocrat »

dragonwriter wrote: post #108
socialdemocrat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would make more sense to point out how ridiculously short maternity leave is in many places. Like the US isn't it a couple of weeks or something and not even paid? I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital. Finnish moms are getting longer maternity leave than most countries in the world with this system. If other countries can manage wi…

> I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital. Not sure how you would notice that when visiting, but, yes, they do.

Because we visited with a child in breast feeding age, and spoke to American relatives and friends with kids of similar age.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#580

Post by codingmess »

rglullis wrote: post #571
codingmess wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "taking double in taxes"? Yes, parents also pay taxes, although usually less than single people because of the "split income". It is still a net transfer of money from single people to parents. (Not only for parental leave, also schools for example, or even free childcare in many places).

I mean that literally. OP said that the govt pays up to 20000 EUR in Elterngeld, and I can show you tax returns where I paid almost double that in a single year. I don't get what is so difficult or controversial about my statement here. Whether Elterngeld or "free" childcare, there is no "giving" by the government of anything, that is all.

I don't understand your logic. You would have paid those high taxes regardless of Elterngeld. You didn't pay those high taxes because you received Elterngeld. Therefore, if you receive Elterngeld, you receive it from other people.

Yes, the government doesn't "give" money, it redistributes it. Some other people are paying for your Elterngeld. Even if in your head you assume that it is paid from the taxes you paid, the money you received for Elterngeld is now missing for other things, they are a loss for the rest of society.

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