The draft laws introduced recently into Parliament, which enable to optionally realize the right to childcare leave and monthly child benefit, can and should be improved. In a news conference at IPN, representatives of the Partnership for Development Center said the parents should enjoy a greater degree of flexibility when choosing the period of the leave.

Alina Andronache, of the Partnership for Development Center, said the system now discourages and fails from all viewpoints as regards childcare leave. This does not motivate the couples to have more children and reduces the participation of women with small kids in the labor market, does not motivate fathers to take part in the raising of a child, contributes to lower incomes for women and families in general etc.

According to Alexandra Ermolenko, project assistant, besides enabling the parents to choose the period of childcare leave, the authorities should detach the child benefit from the leave. “The calculations for determining the child benefit should be based on the precondition that the parents will receive the whole sum to which they are entitled for the three-year period, no matter for how many months they decide to be on childcare leave,” she stated.

The Partnership for Development Center suggests that when the fathers choose to benefit from leave, the benefit calculation coefficient should grow progressively from 0.3 the first month to 0.6 the fourth month. The monthly child benefit should be annually indexed to the rate of inflation as the current situation disadvantages a lot the beneficiaries, given that the benefit is relatively small.

Rodica Ivașcu, programs director at the Center, said that if the fathers go on childcare leave, this has particular benefits on the child, family and them as fathers. The experience of such countries as Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Portugal shows that when the state intervenes gradually to promote gender-sensitive policies and actions, fathers are more predisposed to benefit from options typical for them.

Civic activist Elena Nofit said the flexibility in choosing the childcare leave period would enable mothers to easier combine the professional life and family life, would be a stimulus for the mother and father to equally become involved in the raising and education of the child and the employer would be spared of a larger number of concerns.

The Partnership for Development Center’s initiatives were already sent to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection and to the group of MPs who launched their bill. The two initiatives are to be merged into a bill. The Center will insist that these proposals should be included in the parliamentary agenda and voted.

The bill to amend the law on the allowance for temporary incapacity for work and other social insurance benefits envisions the optional realization of the right to monthly child benefit: either until the child turns three, in the amount of 30% of the calculation basis for each year, or until the child turns two, in the amount of 60% for the first year and 30% for the second year.