# How much paid maternity/parental leave do you get? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 13, 2009, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876 "2009-09-13T01:30:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/41 "2009-09-16T13:18:13Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > Hmm, lawyers’ responses are 2/2 for three months of paid leave, and no one else (in the US) even seems to come close… Interesting, it seems sort of nonintuitive to me, given my preconceptions about what long hours lawyers work. But there’s a lot of training that goes into being a lawyer, and law firms don’t usually like high turn-over. Getting and keeping good lawyers is important for a firm. If one firm doesn’t offer offer good family leave packages, they might find it difficult to keep good junior lawyers. Note: I’m aware that the job market for lawyers in the US is currently dicey, at least as explained in a variety of threads on this board recently. But the overall need for law firms to keep the lawyers they’ve invested in training is significant. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/42 "2009-09-25T08:32:03Z")
New development in Canada: the EI Board has ruled that in the case of multiple births, both parents are entitled to take their full maternity/parental benefits. I started a thread about it ([Parental Benefits in Canada: Double the kids, double the fun!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=532626)), but maybe I should have just added it to this one. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/43 "2009-09-25T13:14:23Z")
I am a lawyer, I work for the government, and I get 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. I am required, if I take maternity leave, to use up all my sick and vacation time concurrently–they will not let us tack it onto the end, or not take it at all. Since I didn’t have 12 full weeks of sick and vacation time accrued, I had to use it all, only took 11 of my 12 weeks of FMLA time (giving myself a week just in case something happened before I got enough time built back up to deal with it), and came back to work as if I were a new hire, with no paid days off. Generally my benefits are very good (a $25,000 emergency cesarean birth cost me exactly $50), but we do not have good maternity benefits at all. Fathers, by the way, get the same deal, but very few of them take off more than a month. ---
**Author:** ![QuercusMax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/8baadc/32.png) [@QuercusMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuercusMax)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/44 "2009-09-25T13:21:29Z")
I work for a small software company in Ohio. I get one week of paid paternity leave. Next year I get 4 weeks of paid vacation (up from 3, since I hit my 5 year mark this August), not including holidays. I’ll probably take somewhere between 2-3 weeks off after the baby comes (we’re expecting our 4th in April). I’m not sure if my company has hit the 50-employee mark yet, but we’re close. I’m pretty sure our company policies already cover everything that FMLA requires, so there will be essentially no change there when we get to 50 employees (likely by the middle of next year). ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/45 "2009-09-25T15:39:04Z")
> [@QuercusMax](#): > > I work for a small software company in Ohio. I get one week of paid paternity leave. Next year I get 4 weeks of paid vacation (up from 3, since I hit my 5 year mark this August), not including holidays. I’ll probably take somewhere between 2-3 weeks off after the baby comes (we’re expecting our 4th in April). > > I’m not sure if my company has hit the 50-employee mark yet, but we’re close. I’m pretty sure our company policies already cover everything that FMLA requires, so there will be essentially no change there when we get to 50 employees (likely by the middle of next year). Funny, my husband is part-owner of a small software company in Ohio that sounds a lot like yours. I would have sent this in a PM but yours are not enabled. Would be funny if we know one another. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/46 "2009-09-25T16:14:42Z")
> [@Elret](#): > > Well I’m about as lucky as they come. I live in Canada and so get one year of maternity benefits through the government, a little less than half my salary. It’s 60%, isn’t it? My wife’s cheques are considerably more than half of her paycheques, net. (No income tax deductions, natch, and no extended medical insurance deductions.) She opted to take only 9 months before coming back to work - partly because she’s coming back to a promotion and this timing was a sort of concession to that. She was a bit bummed when she realized that when we factor in childcare costs, her going back early won’t translate into more room in the budget. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/47 "2009-09-26T18:21:13Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > It’s 60%, isn’t it? 55%, but there’s also a cap on how much you can get in a particular year. Net effect is that if your annual salary is over a certain amount, your EI payments won’t amount to the full 55%. [Service Canada](http://142.236.154.112/eng/ei/faq/faq_general.shtml#much) explains it on their website: > [@](#): > > **How much can I receive?** > > The basic benefit rate is 55% of your average insured earnings up to a yearly maximum insurable amount of $42,300. This means you can receive a **maximum payment of $447 per week**. Your EI payment is a taxable income, meaning federal and provincial or territorial, if it applies, taxes will be deducted. ---
**Author:** ![Ruffian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Ruffian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruffian)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876/48 "2009-09-26T19:32:39Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > Now, wait, **Ruffian** , is that really legal for your husband only to get 1 week excused time off? (Or could he have more unpaid time which he would rather not take unpaid?) Oops, sorry I missed this. It’s perfectly legal in that he could take more time if he wanted via the Family Medical Leave Act, but it is unpaid (unpaid, or difference pay; I’m not sure which). The excused time off means it just comes out of his sick/personal days and does not impact his paycheck. Since this one is coming at the holidays when hubby will be home anyway, and my mother will be staying with us for a bit to help out once baby comes home, he shouldn’t need to take any unpaid extra time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-paid-maternity-parental-leave-do-you-get/509876.md?page=2)