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NO FEES: Ida Lindtveit Røse is a former Deputy Prime Minister and Group Leader at Viken KrF. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum
Krfs Ida Lindtveit Røse will eliminate its own contributions for the father and mother when they take maternity leave. SV calls the proposal an attack on gender equality.
Earlier this year, Ida Lindtveit Røse (27) became Norway’s youngest minister as a substitute for Minister for Children and Families Kjell Ingolf Ropstad (KrF).
Now Røse, who heads KrF’s education committee, will eliminate the current maternity leave scheme in three parts.
– Many families experience that permission is predetermined and gives them very little freedom, Røse tells VG.
Parents can today distribute 16 weeks of leave between them, while the mother and father have a quota of 15 weeks each. The current scheme was introduced in 2018.
– It affects those who breastfeed and do not have the opportunity to breastfeed for free, as you may have to go to work already after seven months if you follow the three divisions. Many want to stay home longer. It should be the family who decides, he says.
Pointing out employers
Half of KrF’s parenting committee will have a free distribution of maternity leave. The rest took the dissent and will maintain a quota of ten weeks each for the mother and father.
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– Could this lead to fewer fathers taking maternity leave?
– I’m afraid of such a consequence. I do not want that. But we must remedy it by other means. Here working life has a great responsibility. The reason we introduced quotas was, among other things, to give parents an additional argument with their employer. There, several employers must meet. Parents are wanted to say goodbye, he says.
Røse is the mother of young children with a daughter of two and a half months and a daughter of nine months.
She believes that work for gender equality is best carried out in ordinary working life, not just through the leave plan.
GOVERNING COUNCIL: Two parents of young children changed jobs when Kjell Ingolf Ropstad appointed Ida Lindtveit Røse as his surrogate when he took the father’s leave this year. Photo: Helge Mikalsen
– Is it naive to think that all employers will do this?
– I mean, it’s not naive. But we must ensure to the end that the parties bear the great responsibility of guaranteeing equality in working life, regardless of the type of leave regime one has. I think it is wrong that some politicians use the licensing plan as a means to achieve greater equality. There must be an arrangement for the child, which is important to the family, she says.
KrF will present its new program proposal later this year and the work of the education committee is an input in that process.
CRITICAL: Freddy Øvstegård from SV believes the proposal is an attack on gender equality. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum
– Attacks on gender equality
SV’s Freddy Øvstegård strongly opposes the proposal from the top of KrF. It says that the time the father spends at home with the children depends largely on the share he receives from parental leave.
– I think this is a great attack on gender equality in Norway and not least on the right and opportunity of the father to be with his children the first important moment in a child’s life, Øvstegård tells VG.
He also says that the distribution of care at home is one of the most important reasons for the lack of equality.
– We have no experience so far that indicates that the employer will give the father the time that has been part of the quota previously if it takes the quota from him. On the contrary. So the result will be that parents lose the opportunity and the right to be with their children, he says.
