[leigha]

Has any country come up with a suitable solution to the issue of maintaining a career before, during and after pregnancy for women? I know many countries have paid maternity leave (usually paltry) and some organizations will hold the job while they are away. Is this good enough?

If the issue is dropout because women are forced to make a decision between career and caring for/watching their child grow surely we can come up with a better solution?

[chha]

Kind of. Here in Norway the parents currently have around one year of paid leave, give or take. Out of this period, three weeks before and nine after the birth is for the mother, while the reminder is split threeways with one third dedicated to each of the parents while the last third can be used by either although not at the same time. The father also has one paid and one unpaid week during birth to help at home.

While there are some upper limits, parents usually get their full salary paid by their employer, who in turn get refunds from the government. There is a variation on this giving slightly more time off for less pay as well, plus some exceptions for single mothers, adoptions etc.

It's not a perfect system, and it's not created with the mother's career in mind, but it does accomplish some things:

-The father spends time with the newborn; if he chooses not to use his third of the parental leave it disappears. This leads to more involved fathers, and also help to even the score on who tends to the house.

-Parents can't be fired or refused employment for being pregnant. You also don't have to disclose this during interviews.

-Companies knows that having kids is natural, while smaller ones may struggle to find replacements during parental leave, the system is flexible enough to allow people to work a few days a week if they choose to. This is up to the parents to decide, employers can't dictate what they should do.

-Employers know that employees taking parental leave will come back, so any experience and work-related knowledge isn't lost just because they are having kids.

[beisner]

In my mind, the root of the problem is that companies haven’t figured out a way (or refuse to figure out a way) to buck the 9-5pm, 5-day, butt-in-seat workday policy. At the extreme case, if people could choose exactly which hours in a week they wished to work, completely independently of the company or team or anything, and perform that work anywhere they’d like, this wouldn’t be an issue. Women could take whatever time off they need to physically deliver a baby, and people in the family could arrange their working hours in such a way that all adults involved could agree on a preferred work/parent schedule that maintains whatever level of employment the adults desire.

With 9-5 this doesn’t work. Remote work helps alleviate some of these issues, but not all. There need to be organizational innovations to make this happen.

[dbcurtis]

In my experience, employers are much more flexible than the state employment department and the health insurance companies.

Ask to work 4 ten hour days, for instance instead of 5x8. The state will force the employer to pay overtime for the hours past 8 in a day.

[leigha]

I have noticed a trend of entrepreneurship amongst women I know that have babies and young kids. They are essentially creating jobs for themselves that work around these constraints you mention. They seem fulfilled and happy with this because it works best for the work/life balance. But most of them had a safety net that allowed them to start these endeavours in the first place.

Perhaps one solution is to offer a safety net i.e. grant, incubator, accelerator etc. for women in this position that allows them to create the job that works best for them? I suppose not everyone is cut out for it but this will at least encourage some.

[prawn]

I've noticed the same. But I think one risk is that fulfilment and flexibility often comes at the cost of structure that comes from the typical, corporate world - sick days, insurance (in the US), superannuation (Australia), etc.