But men's behavior will evolve in response to changing conditions, and so will workplaces. The social democracies of northern Europe have offered generous family leave benefits for quite some time, but recently Germany started offering a hefty subsidy to stay-at-home parents of both genders. "A parent taking time off work to care for a newborn is paid two-thirds of his or her net monthly salary, up to a maximum of 1,800 euros, tax-free for 12 months. The other parent can take a further two months off to extend the benefit to 14 months," reports Reuters. The article continues:
German fathers are staying home with their newborn babies in unexpectedly high numbers in the first year of a generous government subsidy meant to boost the country's low birth rate, officials said on Friday...
Fathers accounted for about 10 percent of subsidy beneficiaries in the third quarter of this year, a major shift in the attitude of German men taking time off work for their children, officials said...
"It's becoming much more acceptable for someone just starting out in his career to take some time off to be with his kids," Families Minister Ursula von der Leyen said...
The unexpected surge in fathers seeking benefits could signal a significant change in the way Germans divide the labour of childrearing, said Nicola Huelskamp, consultant for the German Economic Institute in Cologne.
"This arrangement could mean not only women are held accountable," Huelskamp said.
[Thanks to "Curt," this crazy dude who posted practically the entire article on Rebeldad, for pointing me to this.]
2 comments:
Wow. Maybe we should move to Germany and have some more kids. ;)
Interesting info...
I find that conservative British thinktank's conclusions to be highly questionable. That's the equivalent of saying that homeless people like sleeping under bridges, so why bother providing shelters for them. But anyway, if the U.S. had better paternity leave policies, I'm quite confident more men would take it.
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