Sweden's Bold Paternity Leave for Dads
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| Thu, 06-17-2010 - 12:24pm |
Sweden -- land of Garbo, long verdant coastlines and, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the world’s top functioning democracy. Now comes another reason to love this Scandinavian country: its fantastically generous paternity leave.
In 1995 the nation’s prime minister implemented new "daddy leave" laws that reserve at least two months of a family's state-paid, 13-month parental leave for the exclusive use of fathers. In other words, while dads are not forced to stay at home, their families will lose subsidies if pop chooses to opt out.
The impact on society has been profound. A full 85 percent of Swedish fathers take parental leave today up from 6 percent in 1991, according to a The New York Times report. And Sweden is not alone. Paternity leave is actually mandatory in Portugal, albeit for just one week. Iceland allots three months for each parent individually, and an additional shared three months. Germany reserves two out of 14 months of paid leave for fathers. ...read more
Your thoughts? Comments? Would this work for you.. and for that matter could this work for American families?
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It worked very well for us. Dh and I split parental leave fairly evenly for dd. Even better than the parental leave is the leave for care of sick children: 60 days per year per parent (not transferable) per child. That got split 50/50 between us as well.
Sure, but not without a bunch of handwringing and wailing and hair-tearing-out. Hell we can't even manage to pay MOMS for leave after childbirth.
Kitty
"Adultery isn't a mistake. It is a choice to give your loins greater importance than your dignity." --From the Awesome Files of B
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Kitty
"If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there's little point in writing."-- Kingsley Amis, British novelist, 1971 t .
My DH opted not to take anything, more for his job and such. He did managed to perfectly schedule 2 weeks vacation. I had DD friday morning, his vacation started the following monday. He had the option for the actual leave, but he would be paid less. (60% of his income).