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MATERNITY LEAVE TAKES OFF

If a young couple wants to start or add to their family, one of their major considerations is the length of time they will be granted for maternity leave and the compensation they will receive while off work caring for the new baby. Canada fares well regarding to the length of time granted for maternity leave. According to an international ranking of 33 countries conducted by the Mercer Human Resources Consulting firm, Canada is tied with Denmark as the fifth best country for parents wanting time off, offering one year maternity leave to raise their newborn, following Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and Australia.

On the other hand, the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have the shortest maternity leave. Mothers in the US are granted only 12 weeks off and a mother in Taiwan receives only eight weeks.

Unfortunately though, Canada only rates fifteenth when it comes to the amount of compensation offered. During the year allowed for maternity leave, the government pays Employment Insurance to a mother to a maximum of $413 per week. While it is helpful for people with lower incomes, it amounts to a dramatic drop in income for many Canadian families. As well, maternity leave is not extended to self-employed individuals or those who work on a contract basis since they do not contribute to Employment Insurance, the fund from which maternity payments are drawn.

Fathers and Their Newborn Babies

There is, however, a great new development in regard to maternity/parental leave. Since 1990, fathers have been permitted to take parental leave under Employment Insurance and to stay at home with a newly-born or adopted child. However, for 10 years the rate of fathers participating in parental leave remained consistently low at 5%. The good news is (according to figures released in November 2002) that the number of working fathers who took parental leave in 2002 increased by an astonishing 80%! According to Human Resources and Development, a total of 21,530 working fathers in Canada filed parental claims in 2001, up from 12,010 the previous year.

This increase is directly attributable to a change in society's views. Over the years fathers may have wanted to be at home with the new baby, but parental leave was regarded as detrimental to their careers, indicating supposedly that they were less serious about their careers.

Thankfully, we have become much more accepting of fathers taking parental leave resulting in fathers doing so without any apparent adverse effect on their careers.

Fortunately too, more mothers are also taking maternity leave instead of hurrying back to the workforce a few weeks after giving birth. In this regard, New Brunswick is home to the largest year-on-year percentage increase in the number of parental (mothers and fathers) claims - almost 29%: 5,050 parents in that province took advantage of the program in 2001, compared with 3,920 the previous year. Unfortunately, parents in the Atlantic provinces did not take advantage of parental leave with the same enthusiasm. Leaves for that region accounted for only 5.3% of total claims filed nationwide.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan also experienced a below-average increase in parental leave.

This lower average increase in these provinces may well be due to economic decline in these provinces, and the maximum benefits of $413 per week, minus taxes which leaves insufficient income for many families to risk taking time away from a full-paying job.

If we were to raise the amount of these benefits, many more parents, both mothers and fathers, would be only too happy to stay at home with their newborn. Fostering healthy family relationships would be taxpayer money well spent!

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