2024 RT Amination Banner.gif

China Daily

News> World> Content
Wednesday, February 05, 2020, 22:03
Finland to offer new fathers as much paid leave as mothers
By Reuters
Wednesday, February 05, 2020, 22:03 By Reuters

HELSINKI—Finland’s woman-led centre-left government plans to give new fathers the same amount of paid time off work as new mothers, nearly doubling paternity leave, it announced on Wednesday.

Paid paternity leave will be extended to nearly seven months, in line with maternity leave. Around half can be given to the other parent. Pregnant women are also entitled to a month of pregnancy leave before the expected date of birth.

Minister of Health and Social Affairs Aino-Kaisa Pekonen said the aim of the “radical reform” was both to improve gender equality and to boost a declining birth rate.

This enables better equality between parents and diversity among families

Aino-Kaisa Pekonen, Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Finland

ALSO READ: Female minister, 34, tapped to become Finland's youngest PM

“This enables better equality between parents and diversity among families,” she said.

The number of newborns in Finland fell by around a fifth between 2010 and 2018, to just 47,577 babies in a country of around 5.5 million people. Pekonen said other countries such as Sweden and Iceland had seen increases in their birth rates after offering more leave for fathers.

Finland’s coalition of five parties, all led by women of whom four are under 35 years old, took office in December and has made gender equality a priority.

Speaking at the 50th annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos last month, Prime Minister Sanna Marin called for states and companies to do more to ensure women were treated fairly, saying gender equality “doesn’t happen by itself”.

READ MORE: Finland's prime minister resigns over postal service dispute

A previous centre-right Finnish government attempted to reform parental leave in 2018 but eventually rejected the idea as too costly.

Pekonen said a more equal distribution of domestic workload between parents has been proven to diminish the risk of divorce.

“Over a longer term, it also improves equality in working life and in wages by directing fathers to use a larger proportion of parental leaves than before,” she said.

Share this story

CHINA DAILY
HONG KONG NEWS
OPEN
Please click in the upper right corner to open it in your browser !