New parents can take paid nine weeks of their parental leave from Tuesday. This should make it more attractive for fathers and partners in particular to take leave. This allows parents to get used to the new situation and gives them more space to combine their work with the care of a newborn child.
Under the new law, parents can choose to take up to 9 weeks of paid parental leave of the 26 weeks of parental leave. The benefit for this is 70 percent of the daily wage, with a maximum of 232.90 euros. The new scheme only applies to parents in paid employment. Self-employed persons are therefore not entitled to this.
The nine paid weeks only apply to leave taken in the first year of a child’s life. In total, parents are entitled to 26 weeks of parental leave in the first seven years of a child. If all nine paid weeks of leave are not taken, they can be added to the remaining seventeen unpaid weeks.
The scheme does not only apply to new parents, but also to working parents who had a child in the past year. This child must not have celebrated their first birthday yet and the parent must of course still be entitled to parental leave.
Paid parental leave comes on top of a series of other arrangements. For example, there is maternity leave of at least sixteen weeks. There is also birth leave, whereby partners are given five working days of full paid leave after the birth. And then there is additional birth leave, whereby a partner can take five weeks up to six months after the birth. The benefit is also 70 percent of the daily wage.
Lure to make parental leave more attractive
With this, the government hopes to make it more attractive for fathers and partners, but also specifically for people with lower incomes, to take parental leave. In this way parents can get used to the new situation and the balance between work and private life can be improved.
At the same time, this should also lead to greater equality between men and women. Women generally work less and shorter hours than men. Research shows that this division of roles often comes about after the birth of a child.
By making parental leave more attractive, the government hopes that the partner will be involved for longer. In the longer term, this should ensure that women are less likely to work unpaid and more often opt for a paid job.
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