Fathers paid to stay home with babies

Press, 20 February 1979, Page 9

Fathers paid to stay home with babies

NZPA-Reuter Stockholm In Sweden, Father can now stay home instead of Mother to look after the baby and receive 90 per cent of his salary during the first eight months of Baby’s life. The Swedish Government, anxious to get its social message across to the public, has plastered the Stockholm Underground railway, and other public places, with posters showing a brawny, rugged-looking dad with a new-born baby in his arms. The message is clear: there is nothing soft about looking after a baby. The strong care for the weak,

and you can still be a heman and change nappies. Fathers have responded in their thousands. The father who wishes can remain at home for as much as 18 months, although he will not be paid for the last 10 months.

When he returns to work, he will find his old job, or at least a similar one, waiting for him. The idea that a father can stay at home and look after the baby instead of the mother has become part of the Swedish way of life, says a Social Affairs Ministry spokesman, Soeren Kindlund. Between 10 and 12 per

cent of permitted parental leave is now taken by the man in the family. In 1974, the figure was only two per cent.

Statistics show that it is mainly fathers from well-to-do families, with a better education, who take advantage of this latest Swedish pioneering venture in the field of family relations.

If the wife earns as much as, or more than, the husband, then it is more likely to be she who goes out to work and comes home exhausted, complaining of the dreadful day she has had, while her husband stays at home to attend to the baby’s needs.