Last week I read an article from NPR about a change made by Finland’s government, led by Prime Minister Sanna Marin: Equal paid leave for both new parents in a family. They will have 7 months each. Before, it was 4 months for mothers and 2 months for fathers. Parents could transfer 69 days of their quota to the other parent.

The new policy is designed to be gender neutral and will come into effect as soon as fall 2021

Some other European countries have family-friendly policies. Sweden offers 240 days paid paternity leave for each parent. In Germany, the basic parental allowance grants 12 months paid leave. But if both parents apply for leave, the allowance can be extended to 14 months.

This Unicef report shows how the Children get a better start in life and parents are better able to balance work and home commitments in countries that have family-friendly policies. These policies include paid parental leave, support for breastfeeding, and affordable, high-quality childcare and preschool education. The following tables detail the duration of paid leave available to mothers and fathers in 41 of the richest countries of the world.

Unfortunately, the United States is ranked last, as it doesn’t provide any paid leave for either fathers and mothers. Some companies have short-term disability insurance policies that cover a portion of the paycheck during the 6 to 8 weeks after birth to eligible employees.

However, in 2016 only 14% of civilian workers had access to paid family leave, according to the National Compensation Survey (NCS), conducted annually by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Fortunately, the State of California provides 6 weeks paid family leave and is planning to extend the duration to 8 weeks beginning in July 2020.

This kind of initiative makes the future look bright. It would have been so valuable for my family if my husband had had the same paid leave duration as I did. I remember how refreshing it was for me when he appeared with a glass of water while I was breastfeeding. And he would have been so thrilled to spend more time with the babies at such an important phase.

Family-friendly policies achieve important socio-cultural progress in the countries that apply them. In corporations, if these policies are analyzed as short-term costs, they would lose sight of the fact that they would increase talent loyalty and retention, which is one of their main concerns nowadays.

I would like to know more about your experiences, please comment on the post or send an email to [email protected].