By Bridget Moran
Finland recently announced an unprecedented policy change for paid parental leave: both parents will now be entitled to seven months leave eachfor a total of fourteen months paid leave per family. Currently, Finland’s family leave policy grants four months paid leave to mothers and two months to fathers. The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs reported that the new policy is designed to be gender-neutral by eliminating the gender-based allowances currently in place and is reflective of “the family concept of today.” The new rule is set to take effect in Fall 2021. When it does, Finland will join Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Estonia, and Portugal in offering the most generous family-friendly policies according to a 2019 United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (“UNICEF”) report on thirty-one (31) of the world’s wealthiest nations.
Finland’s political structure is dominated by women. Finland’s government is spearheaded by 34-year-old Prime Minister Sanna Marin. Furthermore, the five parties in Finland’s coalition government are also led by women. Marin previously made waves when she suggested during a panel discussion that Finland should switch to a six-hour, four-day work week. She expressed that “people deserve to spend more time with their families, loved ones, hobbies and other aspects of life, such as culture.” Having only taken office in December 2019, Marin has wasted no time in announcing policies that promote her family-first ideals.
The Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Aino-Kaisa Pekonen, explained the policy’s goal is to improve gender equality and address Finland’s declining birth rate which has dropped for the last nine years. Last year Finland’s birth rate has hit its lowest level since a famine in 1868. Finland is not alone in that trend – many of the world’s developed nations are grappling with declining birth rates. In the United States, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) reported in 2019 the birth rate is 16% under what is needed to replace the population over time. One cannot help but wonder whether poor health care coverage and family leave policies are to blame. According to the 2019 UNICEF report, the United States is the only country among 31 wealthy nations that does not offer national paid leave policy for mothers or fathers. That is correct, the United States, both developed and wealthy, has no national mandate for paid parental leave.
Finland believes it has found a solution to the country’s problems in making the parental leave policy gender-neutral. Under the new policy, both parents will receive a quota of 164 days paid-leave, which is approximately seven months. The parents are allowed to transfer up to 69 days to one another. Pregnant parents will receive an extra allotted month of paid-leave before the parental-leave period starts. In addition, single parents will have the benefit of accessing the daily allowance quotas for both parents. The parental allowance is available regardless of whether the parents are biological or adoptive. The fluidity of Finland’s policy allows every family, of every form, the opportunity to have quality time with their child at pivotal points of growth and development. It is estimated the cost of the program will be around 100 million euros ($110 million USD).
While Americans may be tempted to demand seven months paid parental-leave from congress, we must remind ourselves that Finland is able to accomplish such radical reforms because of its size (5.5 million) and its deep-rooted social-democratic ideals. Finland, and other Scandinavian countries in the region, have long been known for their culture of generous education, health care, social welfare, and criminal justice systems (also known as “Scandinavian welfare states”):
The Scandinavian welfare state can be understood as a system that involves a high level of state responsibility for securing a set of basic assets for its citizens, in contrast to systems that assign these collective responsibilities to the family or the market, or even deny the existence of collective responsibilities altogether.
The Scandinavian welfare state is designed to be universal (regardless of socioeconomic class) and is founded on the principle of decommodification of an individual’s social rights. The system functions on the commitment of full employment in order to maximize the revenue stream and support its massive costs. Therefore, while Finland citizens enjoy the benefits of such a generous social welfare system, they also hold a great responsibility to ensure it is funded. The Finland welfare state is something the country has been working to perfect since the 1940’s post-war rebuild and because of its dedication, the state also covers the costs of childcare, care for the elderly, health care, and social assistance. Yet, Finland is not even the most radical in the region – Sweden’s family leave policy surpasses Finland’s, granting each new parent 240 days of paid parental-leave.
Compare this with the United States’ social welfare system. In the United States, social responsibility is largely left to “market mechanisms” – “the state favors the market by subsidizing private welfare schemes or providing only a minimum level of [governmental] assistance.” Essentially, private healthcare is a commodity to be bartered and traded on the marketplace. Governmental assistance on the other hand is means-tested, meaning individuals must demonstrate the need for such assistance. As a result, the United States’ social assistance program is largely reserved for low-income residents – a fact which has led to strict enforcement and stigmatization of welfare.
As stated above, the United States has no national mandate for paid parental leave. However, we can see now that Finland has laid a much different foundation than the U.S. The new parental leave program will cost Finland 100 million euros in order to cover its 5.5 million residents. It cannot be easily compared to the United States, which has the world’s third largest population at 327 million. The cost to implement such a reform in the U.S. would be approximately $6 billion, sixty times more. Coupled with the reality that the U.S. does not have a system that functions like Finland’s has since 1940 – it would essentially be retrofitting an entire social welfare system – a tall order for a bitterly divided congress.
Although the U.S. certainty has the $6 billion to spend, it does not currently have the culture to sustain a system like Finland’s. The Finnish social welfare state is based on the ideal that the government has a great social responsibility to take care of its citizens – if everyone works, then everyone automatically benefits. The American government would need to change its tune on social welfare, because “if everyone works, then those who can afford private healthcare get benefits, and those who test into welfare will be vigorously supervised to ensure compliance,”does not work to support a generous social welfare state. American citizens would also have to change their attitudes on welfare. The Finnish view welfare positively because they see it as their government’s duty. Welfare is far too stigmatized in the U.S. to roll-out a reform of this scale. However, while Finland’s differences enable it to make these radical reforms, one thing remains the same – the United States faces a declining birthrate and generous family leave policies may be part of the solution.
Bridget Moran is a third-year student day student at Suffolk University Law School. She is currently working at a real estate firm in the heart of Downtown Boston. Bridget has been living in the city since attending Boston University for her undergraduate degrees. She intends on pursuing a career in the Bay State, with a particular interest in litigation and criminal law, and may be reached at bmoran4@su.suffolk.edu.
Sources
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_01-508.pdf
Johanna Ahola-Launonen. Social Responsibility and Healthcare in Finland, 25 Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 448 (2016).
Tapio Lappi-Seppala. Trust, Welfare, and Political Culture: Explaining Differences in National Penal Policies, 37 Crime & Just. 313 (2008).
https://www.stat.fi/til/vamuu/index_en.html
https://www.census.gov/popclock/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHBL or Suffolk University Law School.