Where I live, another Northern European country, we also have this, and the answer is yes. Parents can take up to 2 years off work, so only 5 kids needed.

The company doesn't pay anything, but your salary is paid for by the government. However the amount they pay is limited to €2000/mo, and it decreases based upon how long you take off. If you take the full 2 years, you will only be paid €800/mo.

Additionally if you have two kids you get an extra day of PTO each month, and if you have three, it's two days.

Ah, of course. I was assuming the company would pay whatever your last salary was before the paid time off. It’s much easier for me to comprehend when the government is paying a fixed amount.

Pretty sure it's not fixed. It should be dependant on your last salaries with a ceiling (which is probably the mentioned 2k, but I have no clue). Not sure if there was a floor as well, was never relevant to the people telling me about it I guess.

This is precisely how it works here in Sweden.

that's how it works in Czechia, except you can stay at home 3-4 years (!), so once one child is old enough to be accepted in kindergarten (age 3), you are usually having the other one, so essentially mothers usually stay at home 5-6 years with two kids

mind the parental leave welfare (literal translation Maternal vacation / materska dovolena) ain't that amazing, although it's also not that low - first 27 weeks it's paid by your employer (if you had one prior giving a birth), that one is pretty high based on your salary (I think only mother can take it, not sure) and then you are eligible to receive parental allowance (rodicovsky prispevek) - 300K CZK (12K EUR) which can be used as fast/slow as you want up to 4yo kid AFAIR, so it will essentially cover 2 years of decent income or 3 years lower welfare

since my wife wasn't employed in EU prior giving birth, we were not eligible for Maternal vacation welfare, only for parental allowance, which we applied since birth for both kids and I was actually the applicant since they don't distinguish between gender of recipients of alowance

after these years then if you don't have high enough income you are also eligible for child allowance (pridavek na dite), but that one is not worth mentioning, it makes like 20-40EUR per kid per month, so makes really difference only for poorest families, since you have to go to bureau 4 times a year to prove your low income to get this joke

edit: updated terminology to better distinguish between welfare kinds

If you had 10 kids a year after year, then you would need stay at home parent and that parent would need significant help. There is literally no way to deal with 10 kids and a job.

But also, the woman's body would likely break with that schedule of being pregnant.

> But also, the woman's body would likely break with that schedule of being pregnant.

Bach’s wife had 20 children. Only 10 of them survived. I literally can’t even imagine having one.

My wife went through several and would have cheerfully had many more but her autoimmune system turned against her. She’s a self-admitted bad mother, but absolutely loved being pregnant.

> Bach’s wife had 20 children.

Which one? Cause he had 13 children with Anna Magdalena Wilcke. If he had 20 more children with another one, it would amount to 33 kids by Bach.

Loving being pregnant or not does not make pregnancy year after year for 10 consecutive years less difficult on body. That schedule means you are constantly pregnant, often pregnant while breastfeeding and sleep deprived from baby. While having two toddlers. It takes toll on the body.

It was a total of 20 with both wives. Weirdly I didn’t know about his first wife, Maria. I thought they were all borne by Anna Magdalena.

https://www.oxfordbachsoloists.com/2018/06/16/bach-husband-f...

And of course I agree completely about the toll that takes on the body. As I say, literally unimaginable to me.

> She’s a self-admitted bad mother

This gave me a chuckle — I'm curious about what sort of autoimmune conditions were eventually triggered, and if they came suddenly?, slowly?

Also, while I have you: what types of investments are you interested in/made in the past?

A pregnancy induced condition in which not enough white blood cells are manufactured. By the time our last one was born, she was producing none. She needed a transfusion while the birth was happening. She also has ongoing autoimmune conditions separate from that, and the medicine for them costs $50,000 a year.

My most successful investments were a couple of businesses I started (one with a 129x investment on $100k), Precious metals when they were far far cheaper than they are now (Silver was five dollars an ounce when I bought) and also domain names.

I lost money investing in a local gym, and a whole lot of money trying to compete with craigslist. Never put in more than I could afford to lose. Translation: I never lost so much that my wife complained.

I am theoretically at retirement age so I converted a bunch of cash into real estate without mortgages, I hold a fair amount of cash in case an opportunity arises, and I still invest aggressively in slightly risky tech index funds.

I'm on a path with what I'm hoping are a lot of parallels — including my lady having the same class of medical considerations.

Are you doing any mentoring, or direct investing? Asking for, well, me!

I'm going to have to dig up those risky tech index funds, probably some super interesting companies in those portfolios!

> Are you doing any mentoring

But of course. Check my profile.

With the looming demographics crisis, it could actually be a great deal for society if parents did this! The problem is that despite all these child friendly policies we are still below replacement rate.

Yes but they will tank their future pension payments, and current pay raises. So there is a cost for those that do. If you're unemployed it doesn't matter much though.

Because pension only comes out of your private salary, as opposed to the public stipend?

You'll still have your base pension, but that isn't enough. Most employers do a x% private pension fund payment on top of the salary.

Essentially, yes. I know some people who have effectively been gone from work for years because hey had several kids in a row.

Yep. Mom was home from late 1990 to early 1997 thanks to 3 children spaced around that timeframe.

Fascinating, thank you.