Re:Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
by rglullis on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @10:28AM
(#22247523)
It is amazing how Europeans like to make fun of Americans for their supposed ignorance of political matters, yet they manage to boast this kind of non-sense that GP wrote. Elternzeit can be for up to 14 months, but it comes with lots of restrictions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247242 It is not some kind of "cash-for-kids" system that turns wombs into goldmines. Even Kindergeld (~220EUR/month for every child until they are 18) is not really profitable.
As to your gut feel: once you get used to the idea that the Welfare State is something that you can not opt out of and how strong it is at leveling out society, I am sure you wont feel like you are "burdening other people". After I moved here and started leaving 43% of my paycheck to the government, 14% to income-based (not actuarial risk based) health insurance and paying 19% for VAT and seeing how little I was keeping of that "good software engineer income", I started worrying less about my burden and more about how I could get some of my fair share back.
As to your gut feel: once you get used to the idea that the Welfare State is something that you can not opt out of and how strong it is at leveling out society, I am sure you wont feel like you are "burdening other people". After I moved here and started leaving 43% of my paycheck to the government, 14% to income-based (not actuarial risk based) health insurance and paying 19% for VAT and seeing how little I was keeping of that "good software engineer income", I started worrying less about my burden and more about how I could get some of my fair share back.