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Which countries are most generous to new parents?

Parental-leave packages vary widely across the OECD

By THE DATA TEAM

CONSENSUS is widespread that new parents should receive some form of time off work or financial aid in order to stay at home with their babies. But statutory parental-leave packages vary widely across the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Some have long paid-leave entitlements, but provide skimpy benefits for a large part of them. Others offer shorter leave periods but at full pay. One measure that allows for an easy comparison of countries’ generosity to new parents is the full-pay equivalent portion of the leave. That is the length of leave that would be covered if it were paid at 100% of the average worker’s earnings.

On this metric, the most generous countries are in central and eastern Europe, where governments spooked by rapidly shrinking populations are trying to bribe couples into having more babies. In Estonia and Hungary, for example, new mothers can stay at home for three years, receiving total pay equal to about a year and a half of the average salary. Among rich countries, Australia, Britain, Ireland and Switzerland are at the stingy end, offering mothers leave equivalent to three months or less of full pay.

Most OECD countries have some paid leave reserved for fathers as well, but only a minority offer longer than two weeks. Japan is most generous to men, giving them a full year at a rate equivalent to 34 full-pay weeks. But longstanding cultural stigma over paternal leave has limited this policy’s effectiveness: just 2% of new fathers in the country take it.

Politicians in the United States, the world’s largest economy, like to preach the doctrine of “American exceptionalism”, which holds that their country is completely unique. When it comes to supporting new families, at least, this claim stands up: the United States is the only OECD country that offers no national-level paid leave at all.

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