Last week was SIP week (Sloan Innovation Period), which means that our regiular MBA classes are put on hold for one week while the other Sloanies take special seminar classes. For us LFMs it means that since we don't have any MBA class es for a week, we only have engineering classes to attend. LFMs don't have to take the special seminars since we already take so many special classes through the LFM progam such as several Leadership classes, plant trek, etc. The timing of SIP week could not have been any better for me, as my really good friends in Sweden Fredrik and Katarina had planned to get married Oct 27 during SIP week! So Mark, Julia, and I left for Sweden on Monday night, spent a few hectic but fun days with family and friends in Stockholm, attended the wedding on Saturday, and flew back to Cambridge on Sunday. Some of the highlights of this quick visit was meeting Viktor (my cousins 3 week old super cute baby), and finding out that two of my very best friends are also expecting their first child!
Speaking about families......A couple of weeks ago we had an interesting Organizational Process and Career Core joint session where we discussed work life balance. The class discussion was good, and it was nice to hear all the different opinions and experiences in the class. I think I got all my class participation points in one class. One thing that struck me during the class conversation was the difference in choices you have to make if you have a family in the US versus Sweden. I decided to do a bit of research to find out more of the differences. I found some information online but the majority I learned through conversations with my Swedish friends and family during our visit to Stockholm last week.
Several of my friends and family in Sweden have just had their first child, or is expecting their first child in a few months. I personally don't believe the extremely high tax pressure in Sweden is good, but when you have kids in Sweden you definitely get much of what you have paid or will pay in taxes back in benefits. Tough luck for the people that choose not to have kids, or are unable to have kids. They end up paying for everyone else taking advantage of tons of non-working time as a parent!
To start off the comparison, in Sweden parents are allowed 18 months of parental leave, for 13 months of which they are entitled to 80 % of their work salary. I have heard that many companies will pay the remaining 20% of your salary as a company benefit. The 18 months of parental leave can be split between the parents, and parental leave can be taken by either parent, but the other parent must take at least two months. Another interesting fact is that in Sweden, all parents are entitled to parental benefits whether or not they are working.
In contrast, parental benefits in the US consist of 3 months maternity leave at 0% pay, which means that if a mother is fortunate enough to be able to afford not to get paid for 12 weeks, she can stay home with her child for 12 weeks without loosing her job. This has the effect that most working mothers in USA have to choose between either going back to work after taking 6 weeks of short term disability leave (that is if she has been paying the extra short term disability premium while pregnant - short term disability pays for about 100% of salary), or have one parent quit their job to stay home with the child. The latter option is of course only viable if the mother or her husband/partner are fortunate enough that they can afford to have one of them quit their work to stay home with the child.
Another nice thing with the parental benefits in Sweden is that the parent does not have to take the whole parental leave period in one stretch. It can be taken at the full rate for one year, at a half rate for two years, a quarter rate for four years or even at an eighth rate for eight years. The only rule is that the leave has to be taken by the time the child is eight years old or you loose the unused leave.
The third very nice parental benefit in Sweden is that daycare and preschool is heavily subsidised by the government. The daycare or preschool charge for the parents is 3 % of their income for the first child, 2 % for the second child, and 1 % of their income for the third. In addition, there is a maximum charge a so called "maxtaxa" such that no matter how much money the parent makes they can never be charged more than about $200 per month per child for daycare.
Mark and I have been researching preschools for Julia here in Cambridge, and we found that a typical preschool charges the parents $100 per child per day. In Sweden, childcare places are so heavily subsidised that the average parent pays only 8 % of the true cost. Of course this means that taxation has to be much higher than in other countries, Sweden's tax revenue is over 50 % of GDP while in the US it is about 25% of GDP. But it also means that almost no Swedish parent feels that they cannot afford to put their child in childcare.
Most parents in Sweden usually take turns to stay home with their child(ren) while the children are young and then return to work when their children are between 1 and 2 years old. The Swedish parental benefits means that Sweden has a higher percentage of working women than most other countries, close to 80% of Swedish women work, compared to about 60% in the US. While Swedish women are more likely to work than US women, it is much more rare to find a woman in the most lucrative or powerful jobs in Sweden compared to in other countries such as the US. According to the OECD about half of working women in Sweden have public sector jobs such as teachers, nurses, and civil servants compared to about 20% of female workers in the US. "Private-sector employers are less willing to deal with the disruption caused by very long maternity leaves," says Manuela Tomei, a labor sociologist with the International Labor Organization in Geneva. "Gender discrimination in Sweden may be more subtle, but it is very much there.""
Employers in Sweden must not only plan for how to survice their employees long summer vacations, but also plan for how to deal with the chance/risk of having their employees being out on parental-leave. The Swedish government has succeeded in making it very difficult for employers to plan for their employees taking parental leave. I found out during my dinner conversation at Fredrik and Katarinas wedding that by law, an employee in Sweden only has to give their employer two weeks notice of their intent to utilize parental leave benefits. What this means is that if I worked in Sweden and I had for example 6 months of unused parental leave left, I could tell my employer that in two weeks and one day I would be taking a 6 month parental leave from work and my employer couldn't do anything about it!
If I ever had a "brain fart" and attempted to pull something like that in the U.S. I would be the joke of the office. If I was granted the 6 months off, I definitely would not have a job to come back to after the 6 months, and I wouldn't be paid a penny during the 6 months off. Talk about differences!
Maybe next time I'll discuss differences in the school system......
4 comments:
Regarding preschools in Cambridge:
My daughter was 1 year old when I got to MIT as an undergrad and finding affordable, quality childcare was a challenge. Luckily, after my 2nd year, I was able to jump to the front of the waiting list for MIT's Technology Childrens Center (TCC). There's a center in Westgate and one in Eastgate -- the dormitories. The teachers there were great and my daughter had the opportunity to spend time with children from all over the world. She's 9 now and still remembers her time there fondly.
Good luck!
~Noramay Cadena, MIT LFM 2010 Applicant
Thanks for your comment Noramay. We have been on the waitlist for the MIT's TCC pre-school since this summer, but the line is 1.5 to 2 years long. Hopefully we'll find something good in the meantime.
Thanks for reading!
Maria
What a shame that practically ALL parents in Sweden are forced to return to work after 18 months. This demonstrates how children suffer in a socialist state. In the US there are many options, but most of Swedish ex-pat moms that I know (including myself), even at the middle-class income level, have a better lifestyle than they had back in Sweden, and cherish the ability to be able to raise their children themselves. In Sweden, the government pawns this off like it's a great benefit (along with inadequate healthcare and schooling), in reality, moms and/or dad's do not have the freedon to raise their own children above the age of 18 months. It is best for children at that age to be raised by those who love them, and should take priority over a job. Children deserve the best they can get, and daycare certainly is not the best. Once again, in Sweden it is impossible to support a family on one salary due to high taxes, so both MUST work some crap-job earning SEK35,000 per month. In the US living on a single salray is not difficult, if parents are willing to prioritize their children over work, do some simple addition to control costs, and maintain some self control in a budget. The problem in the US is that people have the freedom (which does not exist in Sweden) to prioritize their children, but they choose to live material lifestyles . . . work the job to get the beamer, bigger house, general selfishness. Mamma/pappa-ledig is a complete fraud, usurping parental power. It's all a matter of priorities.
Great work.
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