Starting with 2017, each parent should be able to choose from one of the two childcare leave options - the classical variant when 30% of the average salary for the last 12 months preceding the maternity leave is paid monthly during three years, or two years with 60% of the salary paid monthly during the first year and 30% paid monthly during the next year and the right to be on unpaid leave during the third year. This is one of the recommendations contained in a study of the reform of the childcare leave carried out by the independent think tank “Expert-Grup”, IPN reports.
Study author Constanta Popescu said that in the long term and on condition that the Education Code is modified as postposed, by providing state crèches for children from the age of two, not three as now, the possibility of gradually reducing the right to unpaid leave can be examined. After the policy of offering two leave schemes is piloted and after the public system is adjusted to the new payment schemes for a period, an additional scheme could be later considered – one-year leave paid with 90% of the salary a month, with the right to unpaid leave during the second and third years being kept.
Among other recommendation are to extend the period during which the uninsured persons are paid childcare benefits from 1.5 years to 2 years and to increase the minimum provided during the first year of childcare leave for all the beneficiaries from 400 lei to the guaranteed minimum of 765 lei (based on the law on social welfare), while in the medium-term to gradually raise the benefit from the first year up to close to the minimum substance level for an adult, who stops work to care for a child.
In the short term, the exemption from the income tax provided for each maintained minor child can be maximally increased. The current exemption is symbolic and allows keeping only about 30 lei extra a month after paying taxes. It is also recommended introducing allowances for children and improving the law on social welfare for families with three-seven children from villages without crèches/nurseries.
