That is just crazy.... I would hate to be a chidless person in your country, I can not image the extra amount of work that get places on people that do not have children...
As someone that will never have a child I like the fact that the US does not force this kind of parental leave on employers, I know that will be very unpopular hot take
A company (an employer) rents the time and skills of employees for a particular task. It's not a pool of work that employees must struggle to achieve regardless of circumstances - it's the employer's responsibility to hire enough staff.
For example, my paternity leave (20 days or 40 half days) would not impact my colleagues. Some of them can opt into overtime, but the same labor laws also define how overtime works - as an employer, you can't order someone to work extra hours unless described in their contract (and limited to the maximum specified by law, with mandatory regular breaks). Overtime is also paid at 150% or 200% of your regular pay, depending on the day of the week and hour of the day (e.g., weekends and nights obviously cost more than daytime rates). Very few jobs are even allowed to work on Sundays.
Its like renting yourself out. You don't feel owned, and nobody feels they own you. Its great.
As a person without kids I do sometimes wish childfree people got benefits in ways that have more _immediate_ applications for us as well. But that doesn't mean parents shouldn't keep getting generous leave allowances to care for their children.
There are countless things the State spends money on that I resent having to pay taxes for, but childhood and parenting benefits _definitely_ isn't among them. Go nuts.
maybe I should have added that the parental leave only applies to the mother. Fathers can just take a month off.
And since women can choose to go back to work after 1 year or even 2 years (at reduced pay until then) the kids can already go to the nursery although it's not free until they're 2.5 years old. Then kindergarten is free
That's unfortunate. Where I live parental leave is split between both parents (I think it is 480 days total), I think that works better.
> I can not image the extra amount of work that get places on people that do not have children...
What you're forgetting is the amount of work required to raise children. That's an externality that is only covered through a social contract, where everyone contributes to a next generation. Why should parents put in the extra work to raise children that, god forbid, would ever do something you benefit from?
What you want is someone else doing the work so that you can just reap the benefits. You're a freeloader, plain and simple (other, less favorable words come to mind).
Unless, of course, you will never in your life use the services or inventions of anyone younger than you. But, somehow, I doubt that - am I right? You just expect those cohorts to just appear out od thin air to your benefit.
- have high income so pay a large % into taxes
- not a citizen so don’t enjoy some of the benefits of military protection
- wasn’t raised here so didn’t use any of the earlier year services
- likely won’t retire here so won’t use those either
Most of my tax dollars goes to fund others in the country. But as a society there is no good way to account for all that. To try to do so the tax calculation will be crazy. So I’ll grumble about the taxes I pay, but end of the day I also don’t really have a better solution.
It's called society.
I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people paying taxes for school have actually enjoyed the benefit of free schooling. It can be helpful to think of things that way... (another example: people complaining about kids being loud in planes, restaurants, etc - remember that you were that kid once too).
as for schools, to the extent I support their funding (which is more limited than I suspect you do) it is generally ethically justified because I too attended schools paid for by taxation, so in that manner I paying off a debt vs paying for others. Granted it is a debt I did not consent to, and had no option to opt out of but still there is that ethical foundation
None of that exist for what we are talking about here
and I absolutely reject the idea of a "social contract"
The problem is that then some people opt out. If enough people do that, it's no longer financially viable to have a fire service.
> I absolutely reject the idea of a "social contract"
Which is fine, but then don't live in the society. As a society, we have decided what is important for the benefit of the society; fire departments, law enforcement, schools, roads, etc. We then attempt to gather money from everyone in that society to pay for those things, because that's the only way it's realistic. Not everyone in the society agrees to all the details, but (in theory) the majority of people agree to them.
It's not all that different than living in an apartment with a few other people. If most of the people agree that everyone has to split the electricity bill, but one person says they don't want to... then it's reasonable to have that person leave, and replace them with someone that is ok with the rules set by the group.
As is quite common in the US, my fire services (as well as part of education costs--the state also contributes) are paid for out of my quarterly property taxes and my town budget is right up on the website to look at. So it's not really obfuscated. And I don't really want to get 20 different bills from my town rather than a quarterly property tax (and water) bill.
That would have to be mandatory service though (remember, firemen can perform inspections, fine people etc. - they're not there just for fighting fires), at which point it's just simpler to pay for that through taxes.
The very definition of a sociopath.
Which the vast majority of America doesn’t do either.
Housing has increased so much in cost that I wouldn't be surprised that just having housing back to 1980s price levels would give most families enough breathing room with just unpaid leave.
Companies are not charities created to employ people.
So sure if only 1 person is off on leave most likely another person could be hired
But 5 years of protected leave..... What percentage of the work force is going to be out on that? Also since it is very hard to terminate someone in the EU, what happens to the employees that are "filling" the positions of those people out on 5 years of leave? can they be terminate or do you have to keep them employed even after the original employee returns?
If you can be terminated would you take a job knowing the second the parent returns you will be terminated
Parental leave should be measured in weeks, not years. If you want to be a stay at home parent for years, leave the work force and then return...,.
The actual leave time is typically around a year. Which is roughly where you can give children over without them crying. But yeah the workload of that parent will have to be picked up by additional staff
I have no kids, don't plan on having any but it's kind of crazy how 'hail corporate' some cultures are. We're humans after all. Let people spend some time with their newborns instead of forcing them to make more money for somebody 3 weeks after giving birth.
Also in the system I work under, all employees pay a government tax that is used to pay for the parental leave. That is, the money isn't coming out of the companies pocket, but coming out of a national bucket designated for the purpose. The company pays nothing when the employee is taking this time.
And long parental leaves are just normal and common in some countries. A medium to large company has no issues dealing with them. It’s part of the management work to deal with that.
Moreover it’s better for a company that their employees don’t leave.
And employees are not charities for their employers! If you can't afford the staff needed for a given task, perhaps you should pivot to something else.
And employees aren't charities required to do things unpaid because there isn't the budget.
It works both ways
Its the workforce who votes for those laws. The workforce in Europe are not propagandized fools to the extent that they vote against their interests.
And is for things like this that libertarians shouldn't make laws
slavery ended thousands years ago
Rising tides and boats comes to mind.
I do not plain on retiring, and if I did I do not expect government social security (I am in the US) will be there to fund it so I do have a private retirement account that currently the US Monetary policy and government regulations/spending is doing its level best to destroy
How could income based taxation be theft unless we're considering all profit theft? Either it's immoral for someone with power over you to demand part of the value you produce or it isn't.
Only in the ultra far right US. Where everything works so perfectly because of that belief.
https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure...
Most of the other replies to this point are not really that helpful. The actual economic point is that since income taxes apply to /everyone/, they do not make you in particular less rich, because your relative amount of money is maintained. In fact, they're one of the main things making the currency valuable by providing demand for it, so you could say they're what make you rich.
VATs are more effective taxes at collecting revenue though, which is why most European countries use them, but only land value taxes avoid deadweight loss. Thanks Henry George.
There are better solutions (teaching individuals to be more financially responsible and kicking overly rich capitalists to the curb, for one) but that's preaching to the choir.
