Working life A pregnant woman still faces discrimination in working life – long family leave is also accumulating for women, according to an expert, due to a large misunderstanding about money

Pregnancy is still a significant factor of discrimination against women in Finnish working life, says the Equality Ombudsman Jukka Maarianvaara.

The phenomenon can be seen, for example, in studies that have examined the effect of having a child on wage development in men and women.

Negative attitudes towards pregnancy can be encountered not only by employees, but also by women in managerial positions.

HS told the CEO on Thursday Nora from Huovilawho found out when pulling out of their company ‘s financial round that some investors did not want to invest in a company whose CEO was pregnant.

Huovila asked in an interview if we want to be building a working life where pregnancy is seen as a problem.

The Equality Ombudsman recognizes the phenomenon.

“Unfortunately, we already have a working life in which pregnancy is perceived as a problem in many ways,” says Maarianvaara.

Read more: Investors’ pregnancy scared investors, says Nora Huovila says something is wrong

Pregnancy- and family leave discrimination are often intertwined.

According to Maarianvaara, about half of the contacts received by the Equality Ombudsman concern matters of pregnancy and family leave.

Having a child is still a bigger barrier to a woman’s career than it is to a man.

Studies show that raising a family has no effect on men’s wage developments. Men with children may even have done a little better financially, Maarianvaara says.

For women, on the other hand, having a child has a really big effect on wage development.

Family leave taken by women in the workplace is often perceived as a problem.

Maarianvaara says that those who often work fixed-term work end their fixed-term employment relationship to have a child.

For some of those in full-time employment, when they return from long family leave, their jobs are shared and they fall back in their careers.

On the other hand, men take quite short family leave overall.

Sometimes the problem is that there is a negative attitude in the workplace if a man wants to take responsibility for caring for a child.

The Equality Ombudsman receives some contact from men whose employer believes that a sick child should remain at home to be cared for by the mother and not the father.

Long family leave is clearly focused on women. The reason is partly money.

Or really a misunderstanding about money.

The child’s father is more likely to be in well-paid male-dominated jobs and the mother in the female-dominated low-wage sector.

According to Maarianvaara, many families have a misunderstanding that it would always be more financially sensible for a lower-income parent to stay home to care for a child.

According to him, in reality, the equal distribution of family leave often also makes economic sense.

This is due, among other things, to the fact that the better paid also receive a higher daily allowance, and to the fact that the progression of taxation affects the income in hand.

For example, Kela pays 158 working days for parental leave for both parents, or about half a year. Weekdays are days from Monday to Saturday excluding public holidays.

The child is about 9 months old when the parental benefit expires. The amount of parental benefit is based on annual income. According to Kela A person earning EUR 20,000 a year receives parental benefit of EUR 46.67 per day. With an annual income of 60,000 euros, the daily allowance is 120.11 euros.

According to the Raha.fi service, EUR 1,142 of the monthly income of EUR 2,000 and EUR 3,141 of the salary of EUR 5,000 will remain in Helsinki. Thus, in practice, only 1.9 times the amount of 2.5 times the salary is left.

How then could discrimination on maternity leave be affected?

According to Maarianvaara, one clear measure of society to improve the situation is the family leave reform that will take effect in the summer.

It allows parents to halve their parental allowance days.

Under the reform, each parent will receive a quota of 160 parental money days. Of this, a maximum of 63 parental allowance days can be transferred to another parent, another guardian, your own spouse or the spouse of the other parent.

However, legislation alone cannot solve all discrimination problems related to pregnancy and family leave.

Maarianvaara states that the legislation on discrimination in Finland is in a relatively good condition, but the question is how things work in the workplace in practice.

She returns to the case where investors had withdrawn from the funding round due to the CEO’s pregnancy.

Such phenomena cannot be influenced by law.

“There needs to be a value debate. The legislation is difficult to catch up with, ”says Maarianvaara.