Paternal leave

[andrewducker]

In Sweden, two months of the post-baby leave has to go to the father.

85% of them now take it.

Most interesting stat: A mother’s future earnings increase on average 7 percent for every month the father takes leave.

Also:
Among those with university degrees, a growing number of couples split the leave evenly; some switch back and forth every few months to avoid one parent assuming a dominant role — or being away from jobs too long.

From

Comments

Correlation is not causation

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

A mother's future earnings increase on average 7 percent for every month the father takes leave.

So the richer the family expects to be, the more leave fathers feel able to take? Assuming income expectations bear at least some positive correlation to income experienced, anyway.

Ah, I shouldn't nit-pick. Will go and read the article.

[matgb]

It are Government policy to introduce transferable parental leave. This is because it was in the Lib Dem manifesto. This is because it was adopted unanimously at conference. Because the policy consultation document said it was a damn good idea.

Because miss_s_b had proposed it in a policy consultation session at the previous conference (her first), after we'd discussed it after I'd read something very similar to the above somewhere online.

It are Government policy to introduce transferable parental leave. And I really hope it gets brought in soon and works as well as it does in Sweden.

Re: Correlation is not causation

[matgb]

There's a huge amount of evidence that, after taking into account educational attainment, both lifeterm earnings differentials and salary at age X differentials between men and women are very linked to maternity leave taken.

There's weaker, but present, evidence suggesting that some employers, probably subconstiously for the most part, are more likely to promote younger men as they're less likely to take a year off per child.

Transferable leave deals with both these problems.

Re: Correlation is not causation

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

I'm quite prepared to believe this, it was just that the sentence quoted was highly capable of re-interpretation!

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

Transferable parental leave was also in the Labour manifesto, as it happens!

[matgb]

Yup, but...

a) not as good IIRC, and b) announced by them as a policy after Clegg got masses of media time on shows like Woman's Hour talking up all its good points.

Which means Labour also picked it up as a policy because SB proposed it to Jo and Lynne at a conference. I love democracy.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

When I remarked to some friends that fathers only got 2 weeks' leave, they all looked at me and said, 'So?'

[andrewducker]

Exactly. It's a change in culture and attitude that's needed.