The Paternity Fraternity

If you came to the Auckland Recruitment Meet Up last week, you will know that I am currently in the family way. We tied the knot in October and after resigning from my gig in December I had a three-month restraint of trade to keep myself busy, and busy I was. Little Baby B is getting here in September and while a year spent kicking up leaves and not saving my nuts for winter would’ve been nice, we’re super lucky and grateful for the new Islander. People have been quick to offer both unsolicited and solicited advice on becoming a parent, the majority have told me about the late nights, lack of sleep, and general abandonment of hedonism. But what I really want to know is, how long is Muggins covering the mortgage? More specifically what’s Uncle Chris chucking into the fund? I had a little look about and while NZ isn’t terrible, we’re a far cry from what some of our, predominantly European, neighbours are getting away with.

Firstly, what we offer here in terms of leave is there or thereabouts what the rest of the world is doing. You are entitled to 52 weeks of parental leave here in NZ. Countries that are doing more than a year are Estonia at 62 weeks with Croatia and Bulgaria both allowing for 58 weeks of leave. As we know, you can take as much leave as you want. You can even choose not to return to the workforce entirely. What we are (more realistically I’m) concerned with is the period that you still collect some sort of income. Bulgaria covers 90% of your salary for the whole 410 days. Croatia is giving 100% if you have health insurance and while Estonia gives you heaps of time off, 140 days are paid for, fully paid for may I add. It probably won’t surprise you that the Scandavs are blond hair and white teeth above the rest of the world when it comes to generosity. They are all pretty favourable for example, Norway has an offer that allows new mums to take up to 59 weeks at 80% or 49 weeks at full pay. Finland even gives you a box of baby clothes or if you’re not a fan you get 170 EUR instead. What they have mostly adopted is a shared or transferable parental leave that allows for the dads to establish some sort of relationship with their seed. Like Deniece Williams, I too would like to hear it for the boys.

Sweden, when it’s not secretly controlling the pop industry, is offering 480 days for both parents distributed as they see fit. Fathers even get 90 days paid days of those 480 reserved just for them to promote father-child bonding. When it comes to Daddy Day Care no one does it better than the Japanese, they offer one full year of paid pat leave exclusively just for fathers. A close second is that geothermal powerhouse Iceland, 12 months is allocated but you are allowed to split it. You can also transfer up to one month of leave to the other parent so that one takes seven months and the other takes five. With all these stable homes it’s no wonder they churn out catchy melodies for fun. It’s not just the Nordic countries that are actively trying to combat intergenerational daddy issues, Spain and Lithuania are ensuring dads countrywide are there to record dance recitals or nativity plays. New mums in Lithuania get 18 weeks fully paid and new dads get 4 weeks. On top of that, they get a whopping 156 weeks to share, during that period they can get 52 weeks at 100% or 104 weeks at 70%, the rest is unpaid. Spain gives dads 16 weeks. The first 6 weeks must be taken after the delivery and the remaining 10 weeks can be taken non-consecutively for the first 12 months of the baby’s life. 100% of the salary is paid.

In NZ, dads get one week of unpaid leave if they have worked for an employer for 6 months and 2 weeks if they have worked for over a year. This is how a lottery ticket became an acceptable Father’s Day present in this country! NZ looks at the last 26 weeks’ worth of income from the year preceding the child’s birth and divides it by 26. They say that the maximum amount is $661.12 on Employment New Zealand but that seems a little off considering min wage is at $22.70 per hour. While it isn’t anything to turn your nose up at, Auckland is an expensive place to live, especially with kids. This is why some employers will offer to top you up for a period, bringing you back up to your normal salary for 12 weeks in some cases. I have a horse in this race because I have a bun in the oven. I know that things have gotten better here in Aotearoa but in this soon-to-be dad's opinion, we can go further. Now, if you call me and get an international ring tone don’t pay any mind. I’ll definitely be in Auckland not drinking Sake, eating tapas, or taking a dip in the Baltic Sea.