UNICEF : US dead last out of 41 EU and OECD nations in key family friendly/childcare measurements

[Celerity]

This does not even count the first 2 years of the Trump regime, so I can only imagine it is even worse now.

FAMILY-FRIENDLY POLICIES REPORT
Are the world's richest countries family friendly?
Policy in the OECD and EU

https://www.unicef-irc.org/family-friendly

Family-friendly policies matter because they help children to get a better start in life and help parents to find the right balance between their commitments at work and at home. Yet even some of the world’s richest countries fail to offer comprehensive solutions to all families. This report focuses on two key policies: childcare leave for parents and early childhood education and care for preschool children. It reviews these policies in the 41 high- and middle-income countries that are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or the European Union (EU), using the most recent comparable data on hand. The analysis includes national breastfeeding rates and policies as well as the quality of preschool education, where comparable indicators are available. It excludes other elements of family policy, such as child benefits or birth grants, to limit the scope of the report to issues that concern the work–family balance.

FIGURE 1: League Table – Indicators of national family-friendly policies, 2016






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Podcast

UNICEF Office of Research- Innocenti
The Research Behind Ranking Family-friendly Policies

https://soundcloud.com/unicef-office-of-research/the-research-behind-ranking-family-friendly-policies




How ‘family-friendly’ are European countries?

The Nordic countries, with their strong public spheres, are more supportive than those which elevate the family as a private institution.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/how-family-friendly-are-european-countries

Bringing up children can be seen as the sole responsibility of families or as a role shared and supported by society as a whole—countries can be more or less ‘family-friendly’. The period from a child’s birth until the start of school is critical, as parents balance time caring for their child with the demands of paid work. Public policy can promote child wellbeing and support parents in this period through such provisions as:

rights to paid parental leave;
availability of affordable, high-quality pre-school facilities;
promotion of, and support for, breastfeeding.

Sweden, Iceland and Norway provide the best overall packages of parental leave and early childcare, while Switzerland, Greece and Cyprus offer the least. But there is room for improvement in all countries, compared with international guidelines and standards.

Parental leave

Job-protected maternity leave helps women to maintain their earnings and attachment to the labour market immediately before and after giving birth. The International Labour Organization recommends that countries provide maternity benefits for 14 weeks and a range of other protections for women in paid work. Most of the 31 European countries exceed the 14-week target in their nationwide statutory entitlements. But only 16 have ratified the full range of protections in the ILO Maternity Protection Convention.

Leave reserved for fathers can promote a more equitable distribution of care in the home and help fathers bond with their children. In some countries, such as Iceland, paternity leave is understood as a child’s right to access to the second parent. Paternity leave is however much less widely available: there is no entitlement in five countries and less than one week (full-rate equivalent) in five others.

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[procon]

1. You'd think the benefits would be obvious and

there would be a full benefit plan under federal legislation. Instead, we have the GOP squandering our tax money away on things like Trump's vanity wall and his concentration camps for kids. We were impotent as Republicans gave obscene tax breaks the wealthy elites (which includes themselves) making even less revenue available for kids and families.

[malaise]

2. Excellent post

Get thee to the greatest page

[northoftheborder]

3. Thank you for excellent article. Saved.

[raccoon]

4. Now, This is just a matter of your perspective

This is just a matter of your perspective.

Looking at the chart another way, the United States is number one in this area. We are number one!