What do you think of paid paternal leave? Are you glad Slovakia adopted this
policy? How does it compare to the
policies of other countries mentioned in this article? Is the idea that housework should be paid
work gaining traction? Has COVID helped
this along as this article seems to claim?
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Househusbandry
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Paid paternal leave has been a long neglected topic, because as a society, we've labelled mothers as the "more important" parent when it comes to childcare. From my own personal experience I understand that a mother can't take on the role of the father and vice-versa. Both parents are extremely important in the upbringings of a child and therefore both should have the opportunity of paid leave. I'm not going to discuss which parent is more important for childcare, as this differs in each household. Due to this reason I'd propose governments to adopt policies, similar to those of the UK and Finland or a combination of them. In this combined policy each parent has a minimum paid leave available and they both receive additional paid leave duration that they can split any way they wish. This way both parents are hopefully going to take part in the upbringing of their child, however at the same time they can divide the additional paid leave at a ratio that best suits their situation.
ReplyDeleteAlthough paid leave sounds wonderful and people would like to expand its reach, a recurring problem always surfaces, that parents taking care of children don't work to the immediate benefit of the economy. Although this is true, I personally believe that the investment in children, which are our future is much more valuable than immediate economic growth and we could express the work parents do as bringing benefit to the society and future economy. Another problem these policies face is that low income workers don't have access to paid leave or are unable to take it due to them desperately needing the money they'd lose on paid leave. Supposedly 95% of the lowest paid workers don't have access to paid leave from work in the US. We can't be talking about increasing paid leave if we don't deal with this issue first. As in our society if the lowest income workers are unable to attend to their children these children will be left neglected and might end up as negative influence on our society and economy, for example in the form of alcoholics, homeless people, criminals, etc. For now a solution would be to increase the paid leave to 100% of the wage for the lowest income workers in order to provide them with the time to care for their children. This method could bring about a slower economic increase or even a slight economic regression, but I consider it an investment for the future in order to raise a new generation of our society.
Dear Maxim, I absolutely agree with you in saying that both parents should have the opportunity to take paid leave. In my opinion, both mother and father play a very important role in raising a child, therefore I believe that both of them should have access to doing so. However, there is an economic cost to such a policy. You make a very interesting point when you argue that a parent’s job of raising a child actually brings greater benefit to our future society and economy and therefore a slight initial economic dip would be acceptable. I agree with your point here, as I believe that an investment this great into the next generation would bring a priceless return, however there is a limit to the sacrifices we can make right now. For instance, you suggest that minimum wage workers should get 100% of their wage during paid leave in order to be able to tend to their children. I don’t quite agree with this, as your solution provides no incentive for the worker to ever get back to their job, as they are earning the same amount regardless of whether or not they are working. Of course, whether or not the minimum wage is something that you can live off of is an entirely different debate, but I digress.
DeleteHello Davey,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that we're able to agree on the fact that both parents have a role to play in raising a child, therefore both should have the opportunity for paid leave. When it comes to to the economic policy of supporting parents on paid leave, I believe you have a good point. By paying parents 100% of their salary, there would indeed be no incentive for parents to return to their normal job. Not only to bypass, but also use incentive, perhaps we could alter the amount payed to parents depending on the desired outcome. For example, in Slovakia our population growth rate is decreasing. If we were to increase the percentage payment parents receive up until they reach a certain threshold of children and decrease it afterwards, then we'd be able to influence the amount of children couples have, without controlling them directly. In practice it would look something like this: the government would pay 100% of a parent's salary for the first child, 110% for the second, 125% for the third, but then only 90% for the fourth and 70% for the fifth. This example would encourage people to have up to three children, but if they were able to afford it they're allowed to have more. If the country's population would be booming, then you'd just decrease the payments in order to discourage people from having too many children. I believe that this method would help parents raise their children, without them being able to take advantage of the system and they'd eventually come back to their work.
-Maxim