Today, men are more open to take paternity leave when they have a child, but in most cases, their financial status does not allow them to take this option.
Ardian Bega, a 37 year-old waiter from Prishtina and his wife Merita dealt with this dilemma.
He says: “My wife took time off work and after three months she only gets half her salary, for that reason I could not get time off too since we don’t have a good financial status, and having three children costs a lot of money.”
Merita says that she took care of her children by herself until they were one year old, and then she started taking them to kindergarten.
She says: “When children are young they need a lot of devotion, it is challenging for a person to take care of them night and day on their own.”
According to the law on labor, new fathers can take two days of paid time off or two weeks of unpaid time off until the child is three years old.
In a 2016 survey from the Kosovo Women’s Network, it is said that most men prefer to have a paternity leave that lasts from four days up to a month. From them, 54% also think that paternity leave should be up to six months on the condition that it is paid time off.
According to the same study, 38% of the surveyed people say that they would take paternity leave if they got paid 70% of their regular salary – the same as women. Only 9% say that they wouldn’t take paternity leave, be it paid or unpaid.
Lirim Zeka, a 32 year-old from Prishtina, who works at a private corporation, says that he took a month off work when his first child was born.
“We had a better financial status at that time. My wife had a hard time taking care of the child on her own so I took an unpaid month off to help her,” he says, adding that his colleagues supported his decision.
However, he still hasn’t decided whether he will take time off for the second child that they are expecting since his wife has a lower salary now.
Arbnore, Lirim’s 29 year-old wife says that she can’t imagine what she would have done without his help. However, she says that it will be easier with the second child because she is more prepared and now they really need more money.
She says “Raising two children costs more, so I don’t believe that we can make it with half of our salaries.”
A study by the organization Democracy for Development shows that at the end of last year, 18.9% of surveyed men think that taking paternity leave would damage the family financial income; 11.3% believe that paternity leave would damage their career, and 15.1% believe that the decision to take time off when their kids are born would not be welcome from the society or their families.
Xhenete Hasani
