Germany has this and is awesome. 14 months paid leave to distribute among the two parents.
Dads get 6 month non-trasferable paid leave.
They were not going to be able to fire him without repercussions. He was not required to let them know during the interview.
Now they don't have to pay that money, which is fine, but they then need to find someone on a 14 month contract that will do it for the same salary as the person they just employed.
Then at the end of it they are left with paying an overlap from the contractor to someone new
Second, the whole thing can be way more complex. In Germany a mother has her job secured for the moment she announces to be pregnant to until the child is 3 years old. So one could decide that will take the Elterngeld for 12 months but actually just go back to work 18 months, and the employer has no way of stopping it.
Third and final point: NONE OF THIS MATTERS! Trying to find the "fairness" in this is nothing but some incredibly naive exercise. Like most things in life, salaries are not determined by the amount of value produced but rather by market value of labor. Risks when dealing with labor force should be already priced in.
If it were a three person company, one person is now gone for 14 months and legally can’t be replaced? A nightmare for the other two employees.
If your company can deal with an employee getting hit by a bus / winning the lottery and quitting, then it can deal with an employee taking maternity/paternity leave.
Example: our childcare facility employs two people, and replacements are VERY difficult to find at the moment.
Like with any other law regulating worker benefits and worker safety. But companies know that starting out and have to plan and act accordingly. That's the cost of doing business.
Businesses are not at fault for their employees getting pregnant, so why should they have to shoulder the risk? If society wants to protect mothers, society should pay up, not the individual businesses.
Are you saying people shouldn't run childcare facilities? Or only huge childcare facilities are allowed, which certainly wasn't the intention of the laws for maternal leave?
Then don't hire employees in a region/country that has good employee protection laws/regulations. If businesses want to operate in such a region/country they will have to comply with ALL the laws and regulations there. If they don't, they should operate in a (in this respect at least) third-world country like the US.
> Businesses are not at fault for their employees getting pregnant, so why should they have to shoulder the risk?
Reproduction is integral to society. I businesses don't want to have that "risk" they should only hire people old enough that they can be sure they're barren/impotent but then they're discriminating in their hiring process AND get employees that are already relatively close to retirement (i.e. not a good idea).
> If society wants to protect mothers, society should pay up, not the individual businesses.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe_and_Cent... -> Germany since it would to me if I had children. 14 weeks maternity leave with full pay, 14 months parental leave with up to 67% or the maximum (1800€ per month according §2 (1) BEEG) specified by the law. In Germany this monetary responsibility is mixed (social security AND employer).
> Are you saying people shouldn't run childcare facilities? Or only huge childcare facilities are allowed, which certainly wasn't the intention of the laws for maternal leave?
???, this was never part of my argument. Going back to your comment I originally replied to, many many businesses and branches of business have difficulty hiring people but that doesn't really matter here.
Not very practical for childcare facilities?
" If businesses want to operate in such a region/country they will have to comply with ALL the laws and regulations there"
The point is that laws can be changed. Here in Germany especially, we are very aware that laws are not automatically good. We went through this period of time where a lot of bad laws were in place.
"they should only hire people old enough that they can be sure they're barren/impotent"
Or, you know, men? Which is exactly what the feminists governments want to avoid, but they bring it about with their paternity laws. Also, what you suggest is technically illegal in most Western countries (discrimination).
Sorry, but I get the impression you haven't really thought much about these issues yet.
"14 months parental leave with up to 67% or the maximum"
Yes, the government pays mothers, but it doesn't compensate businesses for the losses they incur when women they hired leave for motherhood. They just have "punishing" laws like the job position has to be kept open in case the mother wants to return. That is a punishment for businesses, who are not at fault for women having children.
"this was never part of my argument."
You just dismiss it if certain types of businesses struggle. I explicitly mentioned childcare facilities because I have experienced the problem firsthand.
The point is that laws can have unintended consequences. And those don't go away by simply saying "the business should just go bankrupt or operate in another country".
"many many businesses and branches of business have difficulty hiring people but that doesn't really matter here."
Of course it matters, it means the cost of hiring women is even higher, because replacing them is expensive.
What about the case where the guy leaves because is cool in software engineering to change jobs very often? or because now language X is cool and the guy wants to add that on the CV and not your old boring language Y.
In any case your employee can leave so make sure you are not dead because most of the value is in this person head. Though you might as always make a counter offer and pay him much more if he is so valuable.
Don't these fall under "experimentation/probation" period, where you can fire without reason?
The mother gets 14 weeks (6 weeks before due date, 8 after) that is the "proper" leave and is mandatory for the mother.
After that, one or both parents can choose to take a leave where the government pays you 2/3 of your net salary, capped at 2000 EUR. If only one parent takes then it is limited to 12 month and it is extend to 14 months in case both parents decided to take it.
>14 months paid leave
Certainly you meant weeks... FMLA only covers 12 weeks of unpaid leave here in the United States.
I can understand having to "insure" against the risk of becoming too specialized. Like if you work for one company for years or decades, it might be difficult to find employment elsewhere. However, that insurance should be factored into the contracts "employees" are willing to accept. Likewise as a freelancer, I have to ask for a certain minimum amount of money to cover my risks.
Even for employees the protection might have downsides. They are stuck with inefficient coworkers who can't be fired.If you are young, you'll have to leave before people who are older. And employees might stick to jobs where they are not doing their best for too long. And overall, creation of business is hampered, which hurts everybody.
Just some thoughts.
Forgive them, Milton, for they don't know what they are saying.
To be treated with respect like a human being and having overall a good life is still a privilege in 21st century.
This is so far from the point of my comment, it really illustrates how people will view and comment based on the their preconceptions and worldviews before any attempt at rational thought.
I am not saying that the social program is bad. What I did try to point out is that there is no real "giving" of anything. That is all. We cool?
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.
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.
I just want to disabuse you from this idea you seem to hold that the money I received is from "other people".
It is not. It is from the Government. Sure it was taken from all of society via taxes, but once it is taken it is no longer yours or mine to determine what to do with it.
There is no point in trying to argue who-paid-for-what in this redistribution made by the Government. If there were a choice for tax payers to say where they want their taxes to go, sure let's go and talk about "Who is paying for my wife's Elterngeld". But there is no such rational and efficient resource allocation method in any Big Welfare State, is there? There is no way to pull apart who is "me and my family" and who is "the rest of society", is there?
There is just - like you said - one big redistribution of wealth driven by bureaucrats who are (allegedly) working in the best interests of the people. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
In the case of family support, it is clear the non-parents receive less than parents. If there are no things (or fewer) things that non-parents benefit from that parents don't benefit from, then it is a net loss for non-parents. (Non-parents could for example benefit more from government sponsored care of the elderly, which might in part be taken care off by children of parents).
So, let me try different words: of course this redistribution is uneven. The point of socio-political programs is never to be "fair", no matter how much they say it is. So stop worrying about it.
At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks time off, as my wife, despite being just as qualified for software engineering as me, wants to stay at home and raise children. Heck, I won’t even be “overburdening” the school system as my wife is home schooling them, despite living in a “good” school district.
Being charitable I’d hazard the point of this is to encourage population growth, but I suspect it’s playing out more like “have two kids and that’s as many as you should have”, and any more would introduce strong social pressure to stop.
Maybe it’ll work out that lots more Finns will be born, I’m curious to see how it goes in twenty years.
The easy solution would be to have this set up for the desired number of children. 1-3 children: 100% of the benefits, >3: 20% or something similar.
Immigration moves people about quite well.
When I was in the EU, I knew a woman who had 4 kids, each ~1/1.5 year appart. So she would have a kid, be out 6 month, go back to work for 6 month, have another kid, rinse and repeat 4 times :) .
It was a total nightmare for her employer because they couldn't let her go, and they couldn't hire anyone permanently to do her job. They could only use short term contractors who would stay 6 months (barely enough time to get up to speed) and then leave. I don't know if she was "abusing" the system, I mean, it was her right by law to do that, but after popping the 4th one she left work to be a stay at home mom. I don't know how well her employer took it :)
Looks like it would lead to bloat & waste
So women had to chose between family and career, which partly explains the low birth rate. Actually it is still the case because school finishes around 2 pm, so many parents (often the mother) have to work part time because of that.
An indirect consequence maybe a decrease of the gender salary gap, but I doubt this was the main purpose...
I live in Denmark (but I suppose it's somewhat similar in Finland), there is very little social stigma to recieving support from the state.
Because such support is everywhere: child care is supported, parents are given money for each child under 18, when you turn 18 you get educational support, university is free (in fact you get educational support), when graduating you get unemployment support the next month while looking for a job.
I don't think we think of receiving benefits as burdening others, it's more a matter of solidarity. Most people more or less pay off the cost they incur to the state through taxes. So accepting benefits isn't shameful.
Note. it is possible to not get benefits, my little brother said no to educational support during highschool (while he was living at home). It was ~200 USD/month -- but he is a special case, most 18 yearolds do not say no to free money :)
(My little brother later did accept educational support during university ~1k USD / month).
Don't take this the wrong way, but that is such an American way of thinking. You guys are so preoccupied with thinking about somebody getting something they don't deserve that you forget about thinking about what is good for everybody else.
Consider this, Nordic countries have generous public services in all walks of life. If we applied American logic to Nordic countries we should expect the following outcomes:
1. Nobody works, because unemployment benefits are so generous. 2. Everybody is on never ending education, because education is next to free. 3. Everybody has 10 kids because of long parental leaves. 4. Everybody is sick and unhealthy because nobody cares about their health because hey health care is free.
Of course no Nordic countries is anything like this. We have the highest work participation rate in the world (more than supposedly hard working Japanese). Nordic people are quite healthy and live long. Most people just have 2 kids. The average birth rate is something like 1.7 to 1.8 in Nordics. In other words we are under replacement.
So our system definitely helps getting more kids as countries with less generous services have much lower birth rates. Look e.g. at developed asian countries how terrible their birth rates are. Yet the generous system does not lead to some abundance of kids.
Let us get real. Having kids is a lot of work. I love my kids to bits but I don't want more than two. I also enjoy my work and other things. So does my wife. Why would we want tons of kids? Some weirdos probably do, but so what? Why should not I and other Norwegian benefit from a great system because a couple of oddballs exist than abuse the system?
Put some trust in your fellow man. People are not all selfish and self centered assholes ready to take, take and take whatever they can get their hands on.
As to your gut feel: once you get used to the idea that the Welfare State is something that you can not opt out of and how strong it is at leveling out society, I am sure you wont feel like you are "burdening other people". After I moved here and started leaving 43% of my paycheck to the government, 14% to income-based (not actuarial risk based) health insurance and paying 19% for VAT and seeing how little I was keeping of that "good software engineer income", I started worrying less about my burden and more about how I could get some of my fair share back.
The thing is, kids are damned expensive today. When you are not working, you are forgoing "normal" salary. The mother will get ~80% of the pre-pregnancy salary, up to a limit which is not very high. There are afaik no "virtual salary increases" here, at all. We even have "barnbidrag" and "flerbarnstillägg" meaning you get a small amount of money per month per child, and that amount goes UP with more kids. So if you have 7 kids you get even more money per child than if you would have 2 kids. Still nobody has 7 kids to "make money", because its still a loosing proposition. There is a template about how much a kid costs here until theyre 18, and its about $104,000.
Sure, you could stay at home and being poor for 10 years or so but how much fun is that really? =)
Every child has the right to spend time with their parents. Every child has the right to an education. And so on. You should not be given less parental time just because you were born with nine siblings. It's not your choice.
I believe the "unwashed masses having lots of children and draining the wellfare systems" is a quite popular far right anti-immigration trope. And while that may even be true somewhere, as long as it remains individual cases, the economic impact on society is still net positive as long as those kids get an education and a job.
So it's all connected, free school and good social support.
As a parent you can never make a profit from it anyhow. There are of course people who don't know how to work and actually don't want to contribute. But they are far apart.
I mean, really, how do people think like this?