Item — HN Reader

Some societies do.

I'm writing from Canada. Mother and/or father can share up to 35 weeks of paid leave under the national insurance program. This maxes out at, I think, approx $500 per week. It's not a lot. But it helps.

Regarding societal values, this the same program that would normally pay you temporarily if you were laid off (not by choice). Normally you wouldn't be eligible to collect benefits if you willingly left a job. Pregnancy is generally considered to be a choice, so I think making these benefits available to parents shows society does value the choice to parent and will subsidize it.

Parents who adopt a child receive significant additional benefits on top of the standard allowance.

Recently there have been changes to the program to improve benefits for self-employed. As we on HN know ... sometimes a startup founder isn't "employed" or receiving salary in the usual sense and historically it was difficult for such professionals to receive employment insurance benefits but it's changing.

Anyways, progress? :-)

3 comments

> I'm writing from Canada. Mother and/or father can share up to 35 weeks of paid leave under the national insurance program. This maxes out at, I think, approx $500 per week. It's not a lot. But it helps.

This. I'm writing from Australia- it looks like we only get $622.10 for 18 weeks, but it seems like a nice middle ground to support new parents. At that low price I would probably agree that 35 weeks is reasonable.

I get confused when people argue strongly against the middle ground position. I don't even want to have kids but I don't begrudge the use of public money in this way- it's a direct investment in the future of society which shields both parents and businesses from undue financial stress without being profligate or forcing too much ideology on the rest of us.

As an addendum, this leads to much less toxic work culture around pregenancies in Canada; it never feels like a “burden”, it’s just part of life. Combined with the fact that our tech salaries tend to be half that of the US, most companies are well protected from pregnancies because it a) doesn’t cost them much and b) they can hire more people to fill the gaps.

IIRC, it's 15 weeks at 55% for maternal benefits (only for the birth mother), and either 35 weeks of parental benefits at 55% or 61 weeks of parental benefits at 33% (can be shared between parents of biological or adopted child). And I'm sure many employers do top it off somewhat.