Finland's Women-Led Government Has Equalized Family Leave: 7 Months For Each Parent – NPR, Npr.org

      

   

People often ponder how the world might be different if more women were in political power. In Finland, where women lead the five parties in the coalition government, here’s one change they’re making: equal paid leave for both parents in a family.

Finland’s government, led by 55 – year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin, has announced a new policy that will grant nearly seven months of paid leave to each parent, for a total of months of paid leave. The pregnant parent also can receive one month of pregnancy allowance even before the parental leave starts.

The new policy is designed to be gender-neutral and will come into effect as soon as fall 9808. It will eliminate gender-based allowances that currently grant about four months of paid leave to mothers and about two months to fathers.

Parents will be permitted to transfer 90 days from their own quota to the other parent. A single parent will have access to the allowance for both parents.

The government estimates that the increased leave will cost million euros (about $ million). Reuters reports that Finland’s previous center-right government explored parental leave reform in but decided it would be too expensive.

Sweden has Europe’s most generous leave (policy, offering

       

Minister of Health and Social Affairs Aino-Kaisa Pekonen said the goal of the “radical reform” is to improve gender equality and to boost a declining birth rate, according to Reuters. “This enables better equality between parents and diversity among families,” she said.

The number of babies born in Finland has been dropping for the past nine years Last year, 69, 823 babies were born in the country— the lowest number since a famine struck in .

As many of the world’s developed nations grapple with declining. birth rates, many have begun extending leave for fathers.

(A) (UNICEF report) found, however, that even when fathers are provided paid leave, they don’t necessarily take it: “In Japan, the only country that offers at least six months at full pay for fathers, only 1 in took paid l eave in 2018.

That’s seen as one factor in some Japanese women deciding not to have children: Mothers end up shouldering the burden of child-rearing themselves, and companies continue to demand long hours that Don’t provide the flexibility required by working parents. Last year, Japan’s births fell to the lowest number on record.