From 2022, nine weeks of parental leave
From August 2022, parents will continue to pay for 9 of the 26 weeks of parental leave. They do have to take those nine weeks into the child's first year of life.
The Government wants to make it more attractive for parents to actually take parental leave, Minister Wouter Koolmees and State Secretary Tamara van Ark (Social Affairs) and Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven (Education) inform the Lower House. The FNV finds the scheme inadequate.
Paid parental leave
Parents can now take 26 weeks of parental leave in the first 8 years of their child's life. That is unpaid, but employers and employees can also make agreements about this in the company or in the sector. Only a third of parents take parental leave because of these kinds of obstacles.
With the new scheme, parents can receive benefits from the UWV of 50 percent of their daily wage, up to 50 percent of the maximum daily wage. The maximum daily wage is continuously adjusted by the UWV and amounts to 219 euros this year.
More room for choices
According to Koolmees, the new scheme will make it easier for approximately 200,000 parents to have a job and at the same time spend more time at home. Van Engelshoven points out that the tax system, childcare and our norms and values often mean that "new fathers sometimes feel compelled to work longer hours and mothers to devote more time to caring tasks. I want to get rid of that. "The new scheme gives partners more room for choices in the division of labor and care, according to the minister, who also has emancipation in her package.
Leave for the rich
The trade union FNV wants the announced paid parental leave of nine weeks not to be paid in half, but in full. According to the union, not everyone can afford to miss half their wages. “With this arrangement, not everyone will take the full nine weeks of leave, but only those people who can afford it. In this way it is a leave of absence for the rich, ”says FNV board member Judy Hoffer. The union advocates fully paid parental leave, free childcare and modern school hours. “Only then can work and private life be better divided between men and women,” says Hoffer.
Source: PW
