Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on contributors
- one Introduction
- two Australia: the difficult birth of paid maternity leave
- three Canada and Québec: two policies, one country
- four Czech Republic: normative or choice-oriented system?
- five Estonia: halfway from the Soviet Union to the Nordic countries
- six Finland: negotiating tripartite compromises
- seven France: gender equality a pipe dream?
- eight Germany: taking a Nordic turn?
- nine Hungary and Slovenia: long leave or short?
- ten Iceland: from reluctance to fast-track engineering
- eleven The Netherlands: bridging labour and care
- twelve Norway: the making of the father’s quota
- thirteen Portugal and Spain: two pathways in Southern Europe
- fourteen Sweden: individualisation or free choice in parental leave?
- fifteen The European directive: making supra-national parental leave policy
- sixteen Conclusion
- Appendix
- Index
five - Estonia: halfway from the Soviet Union to the Nordic countries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on contributors
- one Introduction
- two Australia: the difficult birth of paid maternity leave
- three Canada and Québec: two policies, one country
- four Czech Republic: normative or choice-oriented system?
- five Estonia: halfway from the Soviet Union to the Nordic countries
- six Finland: negotiating tripartite compromises
- seven France: gender equality a pipe dream?
- eight Germany: taking a Nordic turn?
- nine Hungary and Slovenia: long leave or short?
- ten Iceland: from reluctance to fast-track engineering
- eleven The Netherlands: bridging labour and care
- twelve Norway: the making of the father’s quota
- thirteen Portugal and Spain: two pathways in Southern Europe
- fourteen Sweden: individualisation or free choice in parental leave?
- fifteen The European directive: making supra-national parental leave policy
- sixteen Conclusion
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
Maternity leave: 20 weeks at 100% of earnings with no ceiling. If less than 30 days’ leave is taken before the expected birth, leave is shortened accordingly. Taking leave is obligatory.
Paternity leave: 10 working days of unpaid leave.
Parental leave: until 3 years after childbirth, paid at 100% of earnings for 62 weeks – ‘parental benefit’. There is a ceiling on payment of 3 times average earnings (€1,965 per month in 2009). A low flat-rate payment (€38.50 per month) – ‘childcare benefit’ – is paid from the end of parental benefit until the child reaches 3 years of age to all parents, whether employed, on leave or neither.
Leave to care for sick children: 14 days of leave can be taken by either parent for each episode of sickness of a child under 12 years at 100% of pay.
Other: mothers with a child under 18 months can take feeding breaks every 3 hours at 100% of pay, but this is not paid to mothers who receive parental benefit.
Estonia is a member state of the European Union (EU). It regained independence in 1991 after decades as part of the Soviet Union. There are no statistics on the take-up of parental leave; 10% of fathers took paternity leave in 2007, 80% of mothers take some parental leave and men account for just 3.7% of receipts of parental benefit.
Introduction
Social policies, including the leave policy of a particular country, do not develop in a vacuum. They are part of a political context and normally follow a rather consistent pathway. But in some societies, that gradual development can be sharply interrupted, sometimes when the political context undergoes a major rupture. This has happened twice in Estonia in living memory, bringing radical new directions, principles and ideals. However, despite the very different political regimes that have shaped Estonian social policies for 50 years, these policies, including leave policy, are now, at the beginning of 21st century, similar to the ones in Western Europe, particularly the Nordic countries.
The aim of this chapter is to shed light on the processes behind the development of leave policy in Estonia, to understand how the generous parental leave scheme that we have today came into being and how policy formation is influenced by the past. The analysis of leave policy in this chapter follows the major historical developments in the country.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Politics of Parental Leave PoliciesChildren, Parenting, Gender and the Labour Market, pp. 69 - 86Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2009