Maternity leave Canada vs. USA

[thetreble 19]

dammmnnittttt!!

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Similar to Germany. Mandatory one month prior to due date. I'm not sure about the financial terms after birth, but P's mom is a midwife there and my best friend just had to go back to work because her son turned 2, or she'd have to forfeit her job (they've held it for her). She received income from her job for quite a long time, perhaps a year? Then she received money from the state of Bavaria until she went back to work.

In Germany, being a SAHM is literally a job. A few weeks after my daughter was born, I got a letter and an ID number/card from the equivalent of the SSA there. I asked my husband what that was all about. He said that in Germany, after you have a child, the government acts as your employer and starts contributing to your social security for you.

Germany is a little odd though, depending on how you want to look at it. If you are unemployed when you are pregnant, you are basically written off for getting a job until your child is around two. They seriously don't expect anyone to hire you and even if they did, young child care is something of a very precious commodity there. Places in daycare are extremely difficult to come by. From what I understand, they remove you from the pool of unemployed for statistical purposes until they deem you employable. You would still get unemployment though. You could work, but who would watch your child?

Edited July 4, 2008 by Wacken

[JVKn'CVO 11]

In Argentina it is 6 weeks paid + additional 6 months unpaid...

And if you choose to come back before the 6 months, you can request breast feeding schedule, where you work part time but get paid as if working full time...

Add: the employer pays in full for medical coverage for you and your inmediare family, free elective system to choose the medical insurance of your choice, accesible awesome private healthcare which covers 100% of all bills...

<End vent>

Saludos,

Caro

Edited July 4, 2008 by JVKn'CVO

[T.O_2_FL 0]

Makes me wonder if a country is so career driven then what about the future in having generations to keep the country going? I know for me, my career for the longest time was the focal point...more and more of my female friends don't have kids until later in life or even elect not to have kids....

Wish there was something we could do...

[Cloudy9 11]

So my friend back home is about to go on Maternity leave and we were talking about how nice it is to have the 12 month time period to heal as well as being with your newborn.

From what I have found on the U.S. side is that Maternity leave is typically 12 weeks (3 months) unpaid leave. Do I have this right?

Seems a little daunting compared to what's back home....

I've had 2 children since being in the states. The thing that killed me is how expensive it is to have kids here even with insurance. In Nevada when I was working my workplace only offered 6-8 weeks Maternity leave but the State FMLA was 12 weeks so thats what I took. We didn't have to do the daycare thing after that as my husband worked dayshift and I worked swing shift. It sucked cuz we rarely saw each other. Hospital bill was $2300 plus the med bills we had to pay ourselves cuz I didn't get onto med insurance through work til I was 6 months along (they only had open reg once a year).

In Oklahoma when we had our second child I was a SAHM which rocked plus Hubby had better job and way better insurance. Hospital bill was $1500 plus around $2000 or 3,000 for things like ultrasounds, and amniocentese(sp?) as I was almost 44 when we had our second child. I actually had it the first time too as I was 42 when child #1 came, lol.

All in all it wasn't too bad but I would have loved the one year mat leave after the first one!!

Joanne