COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 2, (AP): Sweden launched a groundbreaking new law on Monday that allows grandparents to step in and get paid parental leave while taking care of their grandchildren for up to three months of a child’s first year.
The development comes after the Swedish parliament, the 349-seat Riksdag, approved last December the government’s proposal on transfer of parental allowance. This comes 50 years after the Scandinavian country became the first in the world to introduce paid parental leave for fathers and not just mothers.
Under the law, parents can transfer some of their generous parental leave allowance to the child's grandparents. A parent couple can transfer a maximum of 45 days to others while a single parent can transfer 90 days, according to the Social Insurance Agency, a government agency that administers the social insurance system.
This Scandinavian country of 10 million, known for its taxpayer-funded social welfare system, has over generations built a society where citizens are taken care of from cradle to grave.
In Sweden, you are entitled to be fully off work when your child is born. Parental benefit is paid out for 480 days, or about 16 months, per child. Of those, the compensation for 390 days is calculated based on a person's full income, while for the remaining 90 days, people get a fixed amount of 180 kronor ($17) per day.
There are also other benefits for parents in Sweden - they can also work reduced hours until the child is 8 years old, while government employees can get those reduced hours until the child turns 12.
By contrast, the United States is one of only a handful of countries - and the only industrialized one - that does not have a national paid maternity leave policy. The Family and Medical Leave Act provides eligible American workers with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave per year, but that time is unpaid.
"We have no federal, national-level entitlement to paid parental leave at all,” said Vicki Shabo, who researches and advocates for paid family and medical leave programs in the United States at Washington, D.C.-based think tank New America.