Who Wants to Move to Norway?

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I stumbled across an interesting article the other day.

Apparently, the United States is ranked 28th in the world when it comes to the best places to be a mother.

The five top countries were: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.

Not surprisingly, Afghanistan was last on the list.

I'm not making these rankings up. Save the Children compiles this list yearly after looking at factors such as access to health care, educational and economic opportunities, and maternity leave policies.

It was the maternity leave policies that got me curious, so I decided to do some research. Granted, my research consisted of hitting up Wikipedia, but I am determined to dig further into this.

I know that the United States offers 0 time of paid maternity leave and 0 time of paid paternity leave. Under the Family Medical Leave Act, you can get 12 weeks off, unpaid. But really, it's up to your employer to determine if you are going to get paid leave or not.

What I did NOT know was that every country in Africa but one offers paid maternity leave. Every country in Asia/Pacific offer paid maternity leave. Every country in Europe offers paid maternity leave. In the Americas, every country but one offers paid maternity leave.

Yup, that one would be the United States.

Great. We are on par with Swaziland in terms of maternity leave.

And Norway, the country that Save The Children ranked #1?

Here is what parents in Norway get:

For Moms: 56 weeks (13 months) (80%) or 46 weeks (10.5 months) (100%) - mother must take at least 3 weeks immediately before birth and 6 weeks immediately after birth, father must take at least 10 weeks - the rest can be shared between mother and father. The mother can also take an extra full year of unpaid leave after the paid period ends.

For Dads (yes, they take care of their dads too!): 10 weeks of the 56/46 weeks paid leave is reserved for the father. If he does not take these 10 weeks, they will be lost as they can not be transferred to the mother. The father can also take an extra full year of unpaid leave after the paid period ends. In addition, the father is entitled to take two weeks unpaid leave directly before or after birth (many fathers are paid for these weeks by their employers).

Restrictions: To gain the right to paid leave for herself and the father, the mother must have worked for 6 of the last 10 months before birth, or the leave is unpaid (except for a lump sum benefit from the government).

Who is up for moving to Norway?

All right, all right, this information came from wikipedia. I still need to dig deeper into this. Perhaps all of this information is flawed and I will need to eat my words. I hope it is flawed. I hope I'm wrong. Because if this information is right, I'm highly irritated.