Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

I&#x27;m a dad (of three) and I am not convinced that time spent <i>at the very start</i> of their lives is <i>as</i> significant as that later in their lives (note the &quot;as&quot;, I am not saying it has no value!) when you can really nurture their passions, knowledge, etc.<p>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&#x27;t feel either they or I <i>particularly</i> gained from it (than if I&#x27;d spent a bit less, say). Do I feel the time I spend with them now they&#x27;re <i>older</i> pays serious dividend for their futures? Absolutely.<p>I own a company and can spend an above average amount of time with my children.. but are companies or the government going to support the majority of parents spending prolonged periods of times with older children? Sadly I can&#x27;t see it happening, but I think that&#x27;s a more important task than having two parents on tap for a newborn. All purely IMHO, of course.

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.<p>We are now having our second child (now in Norway), and while the father quota is great, they now require the mother to be &quot;in activity&quot; (i.e. working) if the father is to have anything more than his quota. This feels like an unnecessary restriction, which we didn&#x27;t have in Sweden.

I&#x27;m a US male who&#x27;s 1 month into my 6 months fully-paid paternity leave with our first child.<p>My wife has roughly 4.5 months between banked PTO and FMLA&#x2F;disability leave.<p>I&#x27;m sitting at home right now watching&#x2F;changing&#x2F;feeding our baby while my wife is out at doctor&#x27;s appointments taking care of her health. Having the flexibility to practice a modicum of self-care without neglecting the health and happiness of our child has been such a huge boon to our family.<p>If anyone has any questions about the experience, feel free to ask.

In Germany it is the <i>parents</i> 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 the tech worker&#x27;s paradise that is California, I&#x27;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&#x27;s not entitled to paternity leave yet.<p>This is broken.

Spain is progressively doing this. Starting 2021, men and women will have the paid same parental leave of 16 + 2 weeks (non-transferable).<p>The main reason is fight against the discrimination from employers who think hiring women is inconvenient because they can go on parental leave for very long.

Good job Finland! Fellow Nordic here (Norwegian) and a dad. The father quota here in Norway made a huge social change. It really helped make it socially acceptable for dads to spend more time with their children.<p>I noticed for my two sons how much of a difference it makes being around your kids when they are young. You cannot cannot substitute short time with &quot;quality time.&quot; The amount of time you are there matters a lot to small kids.<p>I think it is healthy for children to have both a mother and father who is actively present in their lives. You need a gender equality oriented society for that. If women are offered poor pay and opportunities it encourages women to stay home the whole time while men do all the work. That is bad for both parties. Men see little of their kids and kids don&#x27;t get the experience with dad that they benefit from.<p>Meanwhile the mother may get a lot more time with the kids but she also suffers from having no career or independence. The relationship also suffers as one does not have a work life experience and child caring experience to share and talk about.

New Zealand is currently at 22, but moving to 26 weeks paid parental leave for babies born from July 1, 2020.<p>The paid parental leave is up to the parents to decide the split between them.<p>I think it is a great idea for fathers to be encouraged more to take a share of the paid parental leave.<p>This could go some small way in helping remedy income disparity between genders.<p>I was deployed and&#x2F;or travelling a lot when our boys were young.<p>Another poster questioned the value of time with infants as opposed to when they are older.<p>I do think bonding with infants and toddlers is super important for both parent and child.<p>But it can also feel like a robotic and laborious grind.<p>As my boys enter high school, I most enjoy our ritualised time together during daily school drop offs and pick ups.<p>Engaging with them, guiding them on their own journey, and observing how far they have come.<p>I have few regrets, but one of them is not spending more time wth my kids when they were younger, which probably feeds the extra effort in recent years to spend more time with them as they grow into young men.<p>You can’t get time back. Make the most of every minute.

The US, federally, already gives dads he same parental leave as moms.<p>(It&#x27;s crap, but it&#x27;s the same crap.)

Another step towards equality pay (so the risk of moms and dads leaving on parental is the same). This is not obvious, but after you think about it it makes a lot of sense.<p>Congrats Finland.

&gt; Neighbouring Sweden has Europe&#x27;s most generous system of parental leave with 240 days each after a baby&#x27;s birth<p>That&#x27;s working days or what? In Latvia (Estonia neighbour) you may get 12 months (60% of money calculated from amount BEFORE taxes) or 18 months (43,75%). And dad can leave, too.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;likumi.lv&#x2F;ta&#x2F;en&#x2F;en&#x2F;id&#x2F;38051-on-maternity-and-sickness-insurance" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;likumi.lv&#x2F;ta&#x2F;en&#x2F;en&#x2F;id&#x2F;38051-on-maternity-and-sicknes...</a> Section 10.6. Amount of Parental Benefit

I&#x27;m glad this exists. When I had my kids I worked white collar jobs for large wealthy corporations, and I got exactly zero days each time. This attitude change is a step in the right direction. The problem is the people who in my opinion who need this the most (the working classes) are the ones least likely to get it (at least here in America).

This is great news!<p>With the current direction of US politics, as a US citizen, I find myself increasingly entertaining the thought of becoming an ex-pat.<p>Top countries I&#x27;ve thought about have been the Nordic countries - Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland and have considered the Netherlands as well.<p>They seem to have reasonable blended economies with social policies that make (more) sense.<p>No country&#x2F;systems is perfect and I&#x27;m always willing to try something new for a time.

Germany has this and is awesome. 14 months paid leave to distribute among the two parents.

Seems a bit bizarre seeing that mothers in most cases will need to spend more time with their babies. After all, there are certain things like breastfeeding that only a mother can do.

Wow impressive. In Canada as a Dad I can get, I think, 6 months of paid leave. Although the pay is covered by Employment Insurance and it only covers so much (like 55% of your salary up to $600&#x2F;wk)<p>I ended up just taking four weeks vacation for my first kid and it made all the difference. I strongly believe that giving flexible and generous vacation time to all parents&#x2F;guardians will have a positive impact on society. The challenge is that these impacts are hard to measure with a spreadsheet.

I worked for a company based in the valley a while back.<p>They announced their paid parental leave policy one year to much fanfare.<p>That was handy as we were having my second child.<p>I filled out the paperwork for the parental leave and .... they told me I didn&#x27;t qualify because I didn&#x27;t live in California... so unpaid leave for me it was.<p>Government policy is the only way to go with this stuff. Otherwise it will be a benefit only available to a few.

I&#x27;m among the ones who think that the most efficient way to lower gender pay gap is to promote longer leaves (parental or not) among men. &#x27;favouring&#x27; one gender with &#x27;benefits&#x27; for things like caring for family is only reinforcing established roles.

Where does the money come from? I&#x27;m an American and so I&#x27;m less familiar with other countries policies. I get that mandating a very generous family leave policy is wonderful for parents and good for society. To me it seems it&#x27;s gotta be tough for small business owners though. A business of lets say 8 employees simply cannot afford a paid six month leave without it impacting its performance. How is that handled in those countries?<p>That being said, I&#x27;m inclined to proposals here which fund it through Social Security or a Social Security like system, which would level the playing field between small and large businesses.

The discussion surrounding parental leave is one of the reasons I like contracting. I get paid hourly and get to set my own working conditions and benefits. If I ever get a baby, I can take as much leave as I want to make sure my wife and baby are taken care of. I don&#x27;t have to lobby the government or beg my employer in order to get time off.<p>And to answer the question that is going to be asked: &quot;But then you don&#x27;t get paid?&quot;. Correct, but when I <i>do</i> work my pay is around double to triple, so I can take a whole lot of parental leave before it becomes financially irresponsible.

Excellent- maternity leave isn&#x27;t just about physically recovering, it&#x27;s about the child and parent as well. It only makes sense that both parents should get the same time with their kid.

Great job Finland! This is very important for strengthening the family.<p>As a dad, if I were to choose, I&#x27;d rather spend a larger chunk of time with my kid from 2 and up. That is a very good period of time when the kid forms important habits and through games lots of things can be taught. This is actually a goal of mine, I want to save enough and take a few years off from work (or maybe find a part-time gig) and spend some good quality time with my kid.

That’s really cool. It sets strong incentives for men to spend those 6 months with their children, but still leaves the the freedom to not take the leave (and basically forfeit 6 months of free “vacation”).<p>I’m incredibly grateful for the combined 4 months I got to spend full time with my two children and can only recommend taking the time if you can.

I don&#x27;t know what it&#x27;s like in the Nordic countries but here in the US I walk down the street with a 4 year old on my shoulders to work every day to drop her off at school. The women I pass on the street and in the halls beam at her when she greets them and sometimes they exchange a few words. The men? They don&#x27;t notice her: she&#x27;s edited out of their minds eye like she doesn&#x27;t exist, even if she cries &quot;HULLOOO! My name is ___ what&#x27;s yours?&quot; to them except on rare occasions.<p>Men who don&#x27;t have the experience of caring for a child even for a short while cannot make good decisions about what&#x27;s normative of a civilization. Good policies will not be enacted if men do not &quot;see&quot; children.

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.

Thanks but no thanks.<p>When I’ll have a baby I‘ll have to breastfeed, after having carried him for nine months, and having him exit through my private parts.<p>Give me my extended, non trasferrable maternal leave!<p>Edit: since some people are misunderstanding my point: extending the paternal leave costs money. I would rather prefer those money being spent on more maternal leave.

I know I&#x27;m going to be downvoted and already regret deciding to share this but...<p>I&#x27;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&#x27;s not like you go to sleep one night and wake up to find a baby next to you that was delivered by a stork. My fiance and I plan to try to have a child once we&#x27;re married in May but it&#x27;s something we will save our time off for during the early days of its life because we are choosing to try and have a child.<p>If a company wants to offer this as a benefit, that&#x27;s awesome, but I don&#x27;t understand why governments need to create law to make it a mandatory thing. Having a child is a choice.

Who pays? Employer&#x2F;Government? Can anyone chime in on the basic setup... eligibility, amounts, etc?

France: both parents can be on paternity&#x2F;maternity leave up to the age of 3 for the child.

I strongly dislike the idea of any government-mandated paternal leave. Staying home from work is not free, and the cost of it comes out of my salary.<p>I personally want <i>some</i> paternal leave even with its costs, but I&#x27;d prefer that negotiation to stay between me and my employer. I don&#x27;t want some bottom threshold set by a third party.

Dad living in Austria. Here parents share the parental leave, and it&#x27;s amazing.

What are the negative impacts?

Laughable. None of the suffering, equal benefits. Being a man is a cheat code.

so is this implying they deserve the same time off? let&#x27;s be honest the Mums did all the heavy lifting here, i&#x27;m ok with them having more time off their body did go through a massive change.

&gt; Finland says it wants to &quot;promote wellbeing and gender equality&quot;<p>Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave.

an interesting story from japan: they have 1 year parental leave for men and women. but just 8% of men actually took it compared with 82% for women. the reason is the same across the planet: they would be left behind at work.<p>compare this with the former communist country of Romania, today an EU country: 126 days for women, 5 days for men. income during those times is payed for by the state (80%).<p>societal discrimination against women is deep, and the law can certainly help, but it&#x27;s only part of the problem. in some places a huge overhaul of society needs to happen. my fear is that the forces that want to keep society as-is are usually much stronger than the ones that want change.

2 years in Romania. Can be either mom or dad

we did this at LightSail Energy and while it was a little awkward sometimes it was an overall beloved policy.

USA will never do this :( Plus my kids are already born. I got two weeks and it wasn&#x27;t nearly enough.

Men can love their kids without becoming co-moms. You cannot will biology.

Finland Finland Finland, the place I want to be...

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.<p>Edit: changed parental leave to paid parental leave

&quot;to get fathers to spend time with their children&quot;<p>I&#x27;m all for fathers spending time with their children, but this kind of framing annoys me.<p>The feminist narrative, which governments seem to swallow, is that fathers don&#x27;t want to spend time with their children, and force mothers out of their careers.<p>The reality is probably that it is primarily a financial issue. Fathers spending more time with their children means less money for the family, in most cases. Not only is the compensation usually lower than the salary, many dads also fear disadvantages in the job when they stay away for too long, which would also result in less money for the family.<p>And yes, there are also reasons why it is expected primarily of fathers to provide for the family. It is not just an arbitrary social construct.

&gt; noticed about Norway when we were in Oslo<p>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.<p>If others had this kind of safety net they might behave in a similar manner.<p>Petrostates can afford a lot of leisure time for their citizens.

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?<p>EDIT: Not a freak, don&#x27;t care for the infant stage. Happy to dote when they start to turn into people.

I love a good, &quot;X Nordic Country provides Y for FREE -- so should the United States!&quot; Where Y is some socialized benefit.<p>Let&#x27;s put this in perspective: Finland&#x27;s population is around 5.5 million people. That&#x27;s somewhere between the populations of South Carolina and Minnesota.<p>Get a grip people -- The United States is not even remotely equivalent to Finland in terms of demographics and population. Find a nice U.S. State that doles out great Parental benefits, and move.

&gt; while fathers are given 2.2 months until the child turns two. However, on average only one in four of them take what they are given. The current plans now talk only of parental leave.<p>Is it conceivable that fathers actually don&#x27;t want to spend that much time at home and that the Finland Government is strong-handing them into doing it?<p>One frustration I have in this topic is that it is seldom mentioned that any parent with any savings and a decent job has the option of taking unpaid leave and take as much as they want with their kids, but choose not to. That is a very strong case for revealed preferences.

Many comments laud this as a step towards gender equality, which is a noble goal. However, I do wonder about the unforeseen consequences. All mammals (afaik) are raised by mothers. Humans are mammals. Humans do a good job of making changes to our nature, and for the most part those changes have resulted in better lives. However we still have things like nuclear families. Children aren&#x27;t taken away from parents and raised by communities instead. So we don&#x27;t throw everything out from nature, because some of it works well and reliably. Is there any science to suggest that there are no adverse effects on an infant from having an absent mother?<p>To move back up: I&#x27;m saying there might be a good reason mothers should be given maternal leave and that there might not be as good of a reason for men to be given paternal leave. Gender equality doesn&#x27;t mean both genders are the same.