I have 2 little girls and friends with little kids. They always ask me about maternity leave in Poland. My kids were born in USA, but I gathered some information about it from my Polish friends – moms that have definitely better maternity leave conditions than moms in USA…
European labour law legislations provide for different schemes of maternity leave (urlop macierzyński) for young mothers. Some are longer, some are shorter, there are also discrepancies as far as social benefits during that are concerned.
In Poland the duration of maternity leave depends on the number of children born at one time and equals:
20 weeks when one child is born,
31 weeks when twins (bliźnięta, dwojaczki) are born,
33 weeks when triplets (trojaczki) are born,
35 weeks when quadruplets (czworaczki) are born,
37 weeks when five or more children are born at one time.
At least 2 weeks of maternity leave may be used before birth.
On top of that, after the basic leave entitlement has been used up, a young mother is entitled to additional maternity leave of 4 weeks (in case of birth of one child) or 6 weeks (in case of birth of more than one child). These additional entitlements will be increased to 6 and 8 weeks respectively, beginning January 2014.
A lot of my friends took few months off during pregnancy…they just had to have a note from their doctor that basically said they needed a lot of rest. They were still getting paid 100% their salary (wynagrodzenie, pensja)…I’m not sure exactly how it works though…This is what I found online:
“Payment and funding
Hundred per cent of average earnings for 12 months before birth, with no ceiling on payments.
Funded from the Social Insurance Fund, financed by contributions by employees and self-employed workers (but not employers), with some additional finance from the State to cover pension contributions.”
Well, I wish maternity leave in the States would look different…
Here is some more info which will help you to compare maternity leave in different countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave
Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)
