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The bliss of an 18-month, paid, Swedish paternity leave.
- ramidarigaz 16y agoMy friend just had a kid. He works in a grocery store, and doesn't make much. They gave him 1 week of paternity leave, and he had 2 weeks of vacation saved up. I'm doing as much as I can to help, but it's a shitty situation. EDIT: His wife quit her job so she can be with the baby. Technically my friend's salary should cover everything they need, but if there are any complications, well, they'll be bankrupt in an instant. Thankfully they've got a good safety net (lots of good friends).
- jdminhbg 16y agoAnother shitty situation would be if all of your friends' coworkers had to work more and earn less to pay for your friend's decision to have a kid.
- ramidarigaz 16y agoThey didn't decide to. Apparently it was an accident. You do have a point though. I hope nothing happens, considering I don't make that much money.
- gcheong 16y agoAssuming you live in a country that has such things, please explain to me how, with easy access to birth control, morning after pills, abortion, and adoption options, is having a kid ever "an accident"? They may not have decided to get pregnant but it was no accident that they decided to keep the child.
- ramidarigaz 16y agoI think I know why things happened the way they did, but I can't in good conscience post them here.
- dgabriel 16y agoBirth control is not 100% effective, and it often used incorrectly (though not on purpose). Once a woman is pregnant, she may not know for more than a month, at which point an abortion or adoption is an extremely difficult decision. In any case, accidents happen, yes.
- gcheong 16y agoI did not say it was 100% effective (which is exactly what I meant when I said they may not have decided to become pregnant), but it is usually the first line of protection against an unwanted pregnancy. "an abortion or adoption is an extremely difficult decision." The decision, however difficult, is still a decision which is precisely my point.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoWhy? Every single one of those coworkers was born at some point. So they benefited from their parents coworkers getting some time off. And almost all of them will themselves eventually benefit when they decide to have a kid....
- yummyfajitas 16y agoIt's irrelevant that there are benefits from paid time off. What is relevant is whether the benefits exceed the costs. Most people with the freedom to choose believe the benefits of time off do not exceed the costs.
- thomas11 16y agoYour last statement is most likely not true for Europe. So in the end it comes down to cultural preference. If the majority prefers a certain way of doing things, it makes sense to back it up with legislation to harmonize it and make it safe for the individual (in this case, for instance, guaranteeing you to get your old job back after maternity leave).
- yummyfajitas 16y agoThe article explicitly notes that when Swedes were free to choose, they did not choose paternity leave.
- m_eiman 16y agoWe're free to not take paternity leave, if we choose. Maybe most people here enjoy spending time with their children more than they'd enjoy earning 100% instead of ~80% of their normal pay.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoYou are free not to receive the benefits. You are not free to avoid most of the costs. For anyone who values the benefits at less than the full costs, this policy is harmful.
- whyleyc 16y agoDepends on your attitude to individualism I guess. A society where you trample all over each other for monetary gain at the expense of everything else is not one that personally appeals to me.
- gcheong 16y agoIt's not an either-or proposition.
- davidw 16y agoThe reason debates like these are tiresome is that we all have different opinions on what "society" should pay for, and what the individual should pay for. There are very legitimate reasons to have differing points of view, so it's not like there is An Answer out there. So things go around and around and around. Even in the US, the coworkers will have to pay for things like public schools and things of that ilk. Less direct, perhaps, but still part of their taxes.
- silverlake 16y agoAgreed. But I have some sympathy for the Republican complaint that the poor can tax the rich to pay for "social goods" that mostly go to the poor. If it were a truly equitable tax on everyone for social goods then it would easier to swallow.
- patrickgzill 16y agoAssuming you are talking about a place in the USA, are you sure that there is not a state "CHIP" program that he can enroll in at little to no charge? http://www.cms.gov/home/chip.asp http://www.cms.gov/home/chip.asp Or did you mean complications other than health issues?
- ramidarigaz 16y agoI didn't know about that. I'll shoot him the link. Thanks.
- jbarham 16y agoWhen daddy eventually goes back to work he probably won't feel so blissful about paying Swedish taxes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden
- whyleyc 16y agoI guess you get what you pay for - higher taxes, great welfare state. Seems a fair trade to me.
- ugh 16y agoI would also say that the grandparent does little to convince anyone that this policy causes the high taxation in Sweden. It might be, but a snarky comment is not a good argument.
- anamax 16y ago> I guess you get what you pay for - higher taxes, great welfare state. Seems a fair trade to me. Actually, the taxes paid per person isn't significantly higher in sweden than the US. The US just delivers fewer services, and no, the military isn't the reason. At the same time, US income is higher. Sweden can do certain things because it's dominated by Swedes. It does about as well as US states with comparable demographics. Other US states aren't as lucky.
- rada 16y agoHaving just moved from New York to Minneapolis, I second your 2nd point.
- arethuza 16y agoI've never heard any of my colleagues in Sweden complain about their tax levels. I've been to Sweden a number of times and it seems like a rather civilized place to me.
- jbarham 16y ago
- yummyfajitas 16y agoYou can do much the same thing in the US. Most people (55%) in the US earn more than similarly situated people in Sweden [1]. (If you focus only on Swedish Americans, 55% goes up to 85%.) If you want to take paternity leave in the US, you can lower your spending/consumption to that of a comparable Swede and put the money you save in the bank. You can then withdraw it during your paternity leave. The fact that most Americans choose not to do this suggests that paternity leave is not as blissful as the author suggests. The fact that the Swedish govt had to offer an "equality bonus" and use it or lose it incentives to get men to use more than 6% of the per-couple leave suggests that Swedes don't find it as blissful as the alternatives either. [1] Income distributions overall: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distribution-in-us-and-sweden.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/income-distributio... Swedes vs Swedish Americans: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-one-picture.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-o... [edit: replaced the word "standard of living" with "consumption". "Standard of living" is a poorly defined concept and arguing over definitions is pointless.]
- einarvollset 16y agoYou have clearly not been to Sweden.
- pragmatic 16y agoWould you care to elaborate?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- einarvollset 16y agoSure; US effective tax levels brings relative tax rates up much higher than you would expect. That coupled with things like free university education, cheap childcare, state pensions, etc means that I'm highly dubious that all the avg American would have to do is to not get paid for 18 months and they'd be in the same boat. Face it; 18 months leave is a huge perk (snarky comments about going crazy not withstanding). Furthermore, why the he'll should only the rich get to spend time with their kids?
- pragmatic 16y agoDon't forget Swedish fertility rates are less than the replacement rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Total_fertility_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Total_fe... So the state arguably needs to encourage procreation in order to stave off the Japanese style demographic crisis: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53050/milton-ezrati/japans-aging-economics http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/53050/milton-ezrati/j...
- Tyrannosaurs 16y agoEncouraging procreation isn't a sustainable solution. The planet is over populated and building economic models which depend on an ever growing population (or even one sustained at it's current level) is asking for trouble.
- araneae 16y agoIt's true that building an economic model that builds on a growing population is a bad idea. And it it's arguable that building one based on a population that stays the same size is bad, too. That doesn't change the fact that Sweden has many such programs, and it's the fifth most rapidly shrinking nation. A shrinking population makes any social program where a bulk of the money is spent on the elderly i.e. health insurance or social security is going to take a severe economic hit. The Swedes think that by offering incentives like this one, they can help preserve some of their other programs.
- Tyrannosaurs 16y agoI don't dispute that, I just dispute that the solution is to encourage procreation as the original post stated.
- robin_reala 16y agoGovernments should look to Logan’s Run for a sustainable solution.
- eru 16y ago
- jdminhbg 16y agoYes, I'm quite sure having a year and half of your life subsidized by people who made different child-bearing choices than you is nice.
- coreymull 16y agoCross-subsidy is a part of life in a civilized society.
- jdminhbg 16y agoThat's just begging the question.
- nagrom 16y agoYour tone is negative. You seem to believe that making parental leave a positive economic choice is a bad thing for those with no children. Do those people benefit in some way from the children that the parents have (pensions, steady supply of labour for the economy, etc)? Do they benefit from those children having the parents at home a lot when they are very young - does it lead to better-adjusted adults in the long run? What are the alternatives - subsidised child care so that the parents can work? No subsidised child care so that parents are exhausted and do a bad job when they are at work? Does it pay off in ancillary benefits even for those who choose to have no children? If everyone benefits, then why is it a bad thing? In order to persuade people that subsidising parental care is a bad thing, it's probably better to show your working. It's not clear to many people that it is a bad thing, even people like me who are single males who end up paying for it.
- anamax 16y ago> Do those people benefit in some way from the children that the parents have (pensions, steady supply of labour for the economy, etc)? I note that we pay for that labor, so you're trying to double count. Also, if you're going to argue that we should pay because we benefit, you can't complain when I point out that we can get children for a lot less than 18 months of time-off by relatively high-paid people.
- coreymull 16y agoI'd be interested in seeing if there's been any effect on Swedish entrepreneurship resulting from generous family leave. Obviously I'm not talking about high-powered startups here, but lifestyle businesses, freelancers, that sort of thing. Probably hard to draw out causation, but worth thinking about too.
- gaius 16y agoFrom what I have seen: the risk of starting a company is very low. No matter what happens, you're not going to starve or be homeless or be ill with no health cover. But on the other hand: it's difficult to start a company (in the sense that there is a lot of bureacracy to negotiate) and the incentive to succeed is also lower (partly because the risk is lower, and partly because the tax system is punitive of anyone who breaks from the herd).
- emilis_info 16y agoThat's nothing. I was on 2 year paid paternity leave in Lithuania :-) First year - 100%, second year - 85%. Won't do that again :-)
- cnvogel 16y agoIn Germany the regulation to get money for maternity/paternity leave is such that the state pays 2/3 of the regular income for 12 months. (12 months if only father or mother take the offer, or 14 months if both parents choose to, so e.g. the mother gets 2/3 of her pay for 10 months, father gets his 2/3 for 4 months. You also can double the time for half the money.) Your employer, on the other hand, has to let you take unpaid leave for up to 3 years (I think, not precisely sure on that one) with a guarantee to continue your employment afterwards. Chris - currently on paternity leave :-)
- dmm 16y agoOne of the best ways to achieve a flexible work/home-life balance is to run a small business. Can you imagine what it would mean to a small business with 3 employees if one of those employees goes on a 18-month paid break? Not every business is a 10,000 employee omnicorp made up of fungible cogs.
- masklinn 16y ago> Can you imagine what it would mean to a small business with 3 employees if one of those employees goes on a 18-month paid break? You do realize that the paid leave is 1. not 100% of salary and 2. not fully paid by the employer, but funded in no small part by taxes on the general population? Furthermore, if it's a "small business with 3 employees" (or 6, or even a dozen) chances are those people are at least somewhat close and talk to one another. And they know that it's not in their interest to bankrupt the business. There are generally ways to reach an arrangement: try to push the paternity itself further, correctly plan the pat' leave, use part-time instead, etc...
- m_eiman 16y ago2. not fully paid by the employer, but funded in no small part by taxes on the general population? Actually it's all paid by taxes.
- araneae 16y agoI wonder what happens if the family has multiple kids. Say, one every 1.5 years...
- igrekel 16y agoWhen my daughter was born, I took a six months paternity leave. It was great fun and it allowed me to get a lot of things off the ground for the web app I am now selling.