The women no longer need a required length of service to be able to receive childbirth allowance for the prenatal and postnatal leave, which is paid once for the whole period based on the medical leave certificate. The new amendments to the legislation will come into force on April 1, IPN reports.

Nicolae Tabuleac, of the National Office of Social Insurance, said that earlier the women who didn’t have a length of service of three years were unable to receive this lump sum.

The childbirth allowance is now calculated based on the average monthly income for the last 6 calendar months preceding the childbirth. When the amendments take effect, there will be calculated the income for the last 12 months.

Explaining the necessity of the amendments, Nicolae Tabuleac gave as example the agriculture employees, who practically do not work in winter and thus do not have incomes. “If a woman goes on maternity leave in summer, the childbirth allowance is not very high as the average monthly income in winter is low. If the revenues for one year are taken into account, the allowance will be higher,” he said.

Women dissatisfied with the given amendments mobilized through social networking sites and intend to stage a protest today, March 7.