On NPR's All Things Considered, Erin Killian reports, Parental Leave: The Swedes Are The Most Generous:
[...] Sweden has some of the most generous parental leave laws in the world — and the government not only considers the mother, but also the father.
Parents are allocated a total of 480 days per child, which they can take any time until the child is 8 years old. They can share these days, although 60 are allocated specifically to the father. And they are entitled to receive 80 percent of their wages, although this is capped at a certain level.
Paternity leave around the world is harder to chart than maternity leave. In some cases, fathers can tap into the same benefits that mothers get. In other cases — such as Sweden, Norway and Iceland — they have time specifically dedicated to them. Yet in many countries, fathers don't have any time allotted to them at all. A few examples of paternity policies are listed by the International Labour Organization (see page 46).
In Sweden, Reeves reports that dads seem happy. He spoke to men who say the law has really helped them bond with their kids.
One of the benefits, Reeves reports, is that either parent can take the time off. Therefore, employers have little reason to worry about hiring women who will have lots of kids and take lots of time off. In some families, it is the man who takes the majority of the days off.
But the system is not perfect. Swedish men still tend to be better paid than women, Reeves reports. This means the family loses more income if fathers take the leave. And it helps explain why, according to Swedish government figures, women still take 75 percent of the allocation. [...]
At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:
Ugh. I just have to highlight this again, as perfect example of Everything. Sarah Palin, determined to battle healthcare reform:
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
Seriously? I mean, come the flying monkey hell on. How is it that this hollow-headed dimwit doesn't get run out of town for statements like that? Obama's going to come murder her son?
The whole Republican party can absolutely make stuff up, no question about it, 100% lies, no factual basis whatsoever, outrageous, known false stuff about euthanasia and "death panels" and denying care to people that are no longer "productive," stuff that's right out of the most venomous propaganda playbooks around, weird-assed, depraved, paranoid stuff that would be perfectly at home in a Henry Ford tract about the secret methods of the evil Jews or the like—and not a goddamned news outlet on the planet is making a story out of the fact that these supposed leaders of their party are gleefully lying through their teeth about all of it, or that the "teabaggers" carrying these selfsame lies into public meetings aren't just angry Americans with a different point of view, but people spreading known, 100%-goddamn-freaking-false-and-false-from-the-very-first-time-it-was-uttered bullshit, and intentionally doing it so loud that they hope nobody can possibly shout them down.
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