A week or so ago our bureau of statistics publicized findings that employed
mothers have a higher birth rate than mothers without work income.

This seemingly surprising fact is likely due to the difference in benefits
to women with, and without, work income when they have babies.

A woman who has been employed for pay can take off 80% of a year at full
pay, plus her annual paid holiday leave which is legislated to just over 4
weeks for ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY employed in Norway.  Mothers can also choose
to take off a full year at 80% pay, or to share leave time with the father
and both work reduced hours for up to three years.  The first 6 weeks,
mothers are not allowed to return to paid work.  After that they can choose
how to use their leave.

A woman who has been without paid employment during pregnancy is paid a
one-time cash benefit far short of 10 months' pay.  So women tend to get
themselves a paid job before having a baby, because it is a much better deal
financially.

One of the recent moves by our government was to institute a cash bonus to
all families with children under 3 who are not in licensed day care.  This
has been very controversial because it is making it nearly impossible to get
teachers and nurses back to work in the first three years.  It pays more to
stay home in many cases.  Another area of controversy is that if they use a
babysitter on the gray market, they can continue to work at their paid
employment while collecting this benefit (US $300 per month per child under
3 years of age) and so the stated goal of letting parents and children have
more time together is not met.  Licensed day care here is very well
regulated, well staffed and of high quality.  Gray market sitters can be
great and they can be dismal, the only common denominator being that the
sitters don't pay taxes or earn retirement benefits for the work they do.

By the way, the data also show that women who have had paid employment,
breastfeed longer on average than do stay-at-home mothers.  This probably
reflects social class differences between the two groups rather than an
effect of employment itself.  There is no evidence here that paid employment
shortens the period of breastfeeding, which at present is over 9 months on
average, with about 80% of women still breastfeeding at 6 months.  There
seems to be a decline between 6 and 12 months, but the new recommendations
to 'maintain BF throughout the first year of life and beyond that according
to the wishes of the mother and child' may help women to keep going longer.

I would have preferred our state council on nutrition to just copy the WHO
recommendations, for maintaining BF throughout the SECOND year of life and
thereafter as long as mother and child want.  'Raising the bar' will have to
be an issue for the voluntary organization to focus on.
Rachel Myr
Norway

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