Maternity leave in Finland is generous according to my American standards. This obligatory leave is 105 non-Sunday, non-holidays which is roughly 4 months. This period begins 30 - 50 days before the baby's due date and is all paid. The employer may opt to pay the salary in full for a designated amount of time. If the employer does not pay the salary and/or when this amount of time is over, the national insurance, KELA, pays roughly 70% of the salary.
All of this is regardless of the woman's profession or employment. To qualify for this benefit, the woman must submit an application to KELA which includes a note from the maternity clinic that she has had care before the 4th month of pregnancy. This is the same application used for the baby box.
KELA is serious about beginning leave 30 days before the due date: they yank insurance coverage at the woman's workplace because she is not supposed to be there. If she is working and is injured, she will have to pay the medical expenses out of pocket. So, stay at home!
Following maternity leave is parental leave. This is the 158 days immediately following the maternity leave period, which works out to be about 6 months. Again, this is non-Sundays, non-holidays and 70% salary is paid by KELA. This period may be split between the parents with the restriction that each parent can only do 2 stints and each block of time must be a minimum of 12 days.
In addition to that is paternity leave. The father is guaranteed 54 working days (about 2 months) of leave before the child is 2 years old. However, only 18 days of this leave can be used during the maternity and parental leave periods. This time can be divided into a maximum of 4 periods.
Got all of that? This all works out to mean that one of the parents is home with the baby until it is 9 months old and if the paternal leave is used in succession, the baby will be 11 months. Because of this, the city-operated day cares do not accept babies younger than 10 months. This system is pretty amazing to me. Mind-boggling, in fact. I am extremely grateful for this time I get to spend with my little one.
