health insurance maternity

Parental leave is the right to take time off work, paid or unpaid, to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave.

In most western countries parental leave is available for those who have worked for their current employer for a certain period of time. In the UK, for instance, working mothers are given the right to 26 weeks of paid leave for each child, 6 weeks at 90% of full pay and 20 weeks at a fixed amount.

An example of generous parental leave is Sweden, where all working parents are entitled to 18 months' paid leave per child, the cost being shared between employer and State. To encourage greater paternal involvement in child-rearing, a minimum of 3 months out of the 18 is required to be used by the "minority" parent, in practice usually the father, and some Swedish political parties on the Left argue for legislation to oblige families to divide the 18 months equally between both parents. Norway also has similarly generous leave. Maternity.

The system in Bulgaria is even more generous, providing mothers with 45 days 100% paid sick leave prior the due date, 2 years paid leave, and 1 additional year of unpaid leave. The employeer is obliged to restore the mother to the same position upon return to work. In addition, pregnant women and single mothers cannot be fired.

There is currently a push to expand paid maternity leave in countries such as Australia and the United States. In 2000, parental leave was greatly expanded in Canada from 10 weeks to 35 weeks divided between the two parents, which can be expanded to a year. In Canada parental leave is paid for by the Employment Insurance system.