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Comment by Domenic_S | Hacker News Reader

I dunno about a long way off... what I'm seeing are medium-long amounts of time and a paltry % of your pay, and often only for mothers.

Canada for example offers 50 weeks (wow!) of 55% pay (uh oh) with a 2 week waiting period (ooo..) up to a max of $501/week (eek). Costa Rica gives women 4 months at 100% (yay!) but only 3 days for fathers (boo). Japan is 14 weeks 60%, nothing for fathers. Examples are many at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

It's certainly one area nobody's really solved since women joined the workforce.

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Thats why I like Lithuania, you can take this:

1 year 100% or 2 years: 52 weeks 70% and 52 weeks 40% (either mother or father can take it or take the leave in shifts)

And you could even do Like this:

1 Year Mother 100 %, next Year Father 100 % - awesome, right?

Sure, but you are comparing federally mandated minimums. Elsewhere in this thread there is a lot of hay being made about how your company may offer more.... The same is true here. For example, I know people whose 50 weeks in Canada has been topped up to 80%.

It's not just about pay either, but about what security (if any) someone has after maternity or paternity leave. In practice, I think you'll fund the in the U.S. This is much harder to do, not just compared to Canada, but to most of Europe.

> Sure, but you are comparing federally mandated minimums.

Which is exactly what you were talking about, so I don't see a problem. And like I said, some states go above and beyond.

> It's not just about pay either, but about what security (if any) someone has after maternity or paternity leave [...] in the U.S. this is much harder to do

Not at all, that's precisely what the federal FMLA is for. 12 weeks of job-protected leave. No payment unless covered by something else (PTO, company policy, state law, etc), but it is 3 months of job-protected leave.

Actually, when I said "there are reasonable options" I wasn't referring to federal minimums at all, but I should have made that more clear.

I know what FMLA is for, I'm saying that compared to many places, that is not much protection. You picked a couple of places out of that wikipedia page, but on the short end. What about Sweden's 13 months at 75% or so, or Englands year?

Anyway, I'm not saying one approach is wrong, as it is all trade-offs. I'm just saying that this is made much more difficult in the US than in a lot of comparable countries, and I think that is pretty uncontroversial.

I agree that it's trade-offs. UK's maternity leave - considered the gold standard by many - does indeed allow 52 weeks, but only the first 6 weeks are paid at 90%, then from week 7-39, you get a paltry £136.78/week. Weeks 40-52 are unpaid (some employers offer "enhanced benefits" that override these numbers, but now we're back to relying on employers' generosity).

Indeed a tough problem.

Edit: I can't read

It's 6 weeks paid, 10.5 months mostly unpaid

Yeah, the Costa Rica case was a real bummer for me.

Just had my first child and I only managed to get 5 days from the company, they were nice enough to throw in 2 additional days to my 3 days. To at least make it a week.

There's a bit of a caveat to the women's 4 months, those 4 months start by law 1 month before the child is scheduled to be born and continue for 3 months. We would have preferred more time after the birth and less time before.

Wow, that's really interesting! I am always amazed at the geographic diversity in tech.

Costa Rica is pretty heavily vested in tech, actually.

"... In 2006 Intel's microprocessor facility alone was responsible for 20% of Costa Rican exports and 4.9% of the country's GDP.[20][21]..."

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Costa_Rica

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