International Review of Leave Policies and Related Research ... - SFI

elatively low public provision of childcare services, especially for children
below the age of three years; and working time rigidities, in particular the
low availability of part-time jobs. To return to the labour market is easier
for those who do some paid work while taking childcare leave. Paid
employment has always been allowed for parents taking leave yet only 7
to 8 per cent of leave takers have used this option.
In her response, Jirina Kocourková concludes that the Czech Republic
and Hungary have had similar policy developments and experiences from
the 1950s up to the present day, with long leave periods and reductions in
childcare services. She argues that the real problem is not the length of
parental leave in both countries, but the absence of options for women
with children under three years, who are forced to make a choice between
motherhood and career; the result is low fertility. The solution is to
facilitate women to have both an appropriate job and a family. To make
choice available for all women means that both the leave system and
childcare facilities need to be developed. Current changes in the Czech
Republic indicate that the ‘long leave model’ is not sustainable; it is time
to transform this model to one much better able to meet the needs of
younger generations.
Nada Stropnik’s paper shows a strongly contrasting picture in Slovenia:
high female employment rates including mothers; a shorter but well-paid
Parental leave; and well-developed childcare services, with a widespread
view that a quality childcare service is not a bad option for a one year old
child. So although most parents consider care by parents to be best, even
more disagreed with the statement that children who are in a childcare
centre most of the week have a bigger chance of problems in their later
life. In the mid-1990s the conservative political parties proposed an
extension of Parental leave until a child’s second or even third birthday.
Although many welcomed this idea, it has also been strongly opposed
because of its related risks: unequal opportunities for sexes in the labour
market, organisational problems for employers, budgetary constraints,
and worsening of the financial situation of young families.
Employers’ perspectives and involvement
The focus of the paper by Linda Haas (United States) and Philip Hwang
(Sweden) is corporate support for fathers taking Parental leave. They
begin with a review of the international literature. Workplaces have
traditionally been organised around a work/life model that assumes that
the average worker (a man) arrives at work unencumbered by family
responsibilities, so that employers need not offer workers flexibility to give
family care. Several research studies have found that the more support
fathers perceive they have at the workplace, the more likely they are to
take Parental leave, and it is common for parents to blame fathers’
workplaces for why leave is not shared more between mothers and fathers
– though the impact of employers’ negative attitudes may be overstated.
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