Paternity pay encourages males to take leave, but a lot of men will choose not to (probably because of social norms - you could also claim it's more important for a male to be successful due to the tendency of women "marrying up" in society, this is all speculation though). The traditional problem in Finland has beenpentagathus said:
A) the person on maternity leave gets full pay, which is mostly paid for by the employer, not the state
B) it is impossible to fire the person even if they spend a decade on maternity leave (they have to return for a number of weeks inbetween every maternity leave), which means you'll have to pay all sorts of extra costs, including replacement which of course requires time to get the gears going etc.
C) in case the employer gets rid of the person it will lead to a court case, which the employer is likely to lose
D) it is illegal to ask if a person plans on having children, meaning the employer will discriminate against women across the board
It's devastating for small businesses in mostly female-dominated branches, such as hair salons. If you have 8 employees and 3 of them are on maternity leave you're hemorrhaging a lot of money, and it's not guaranteed you were making any in the first place. Not like this is a very entrepreneur-friendly environment anyway.
