Finland offering dads same paid parental leave as moms
HELSINKI – Finland’s woman-led center-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,” 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.
