Roundup: Finnish welfare system encourages mothers of young children to stay at home

Finland observed Mothers' Day on Sunday against the backdrop of a heated debate about the current social welfare system, which encourages mothers to remain at home rather than go back to work.

The monthly compensation for domestic care to a family with two children in the Helsinki area is around 600 euros. If the wife takes a job at a modest salary, the actual earnings may be reduced to 200 or 300 euros, as the public day care payments and income tax eat up the rest.

Bitter mothers of young children have described the benefit system as "a trap". They want to go back to work but quite often they work at the cost of a financial loss or with very little gain.

Remaining at home for a few more years may be economically advantageous, but may hit back later on the woman's life. Pensions and other benefit accrual will be affected as they are delivered based on salaries.

And in the worst scenario, harsh economic realities may prevent the wife from taking a divorce. Finland has no system of transferring pension earnings of the husband to the wife, although such solutions exist in countries where being a life-long housewife is more common, such as Germany.

Helsingin Sanomat cited Markus Jantti, a professor of public economy at Helsinki University, as saying that the weak employment rate of women at best working age was a problem not only in equality but also in public economy.

In Finland, around 70 percent of women aged 30-34 are employed, while in neighbouring Sweden it is 80 percent.

Experts believe the reason for the difference is that Sweden does not give financial support for domestic care of children. In Finland, mothers stay home longer, in Sweden they join the labor market earlier.

Ahead of Mother's Day, the issue surfaced again as a skirmish in the coalition government. Political decision makers are deeply split on whether to reduce the current financial payments for taking care of children at home.

While the leading Centre Party and the populist Finns Party have opposed cutbacks in support for domestic care, welfare experts and leftist and liberal politicians have demanded that the support for domestic care be reduced or mandated between father and mother. Endit