80% of salary for an extra month, also valid for dads – Corriere.it

Parental leave extended in 2023, not only for mothers but also for fathers. The measure that provides for an extra month of parental leave with pay at 80% of the salary for mothers, included in the 2023 budget law, will be correct – explained Maurizio Lupi, leader of Noi Moderati, leaving Palazzo Chigi at the end of the government-majority summit on the maneuver —: we will present an amendment but shared by the government because the extra month is paid at 80% can be used by the mother or the father.

Parental leave news

The law currently in force provides for an indemnity paid at 30%. The novelty of the rule, as inserted in the manoeuvre, provides for the addition of an optional month paid at 80% and usable up to the sixth year of the child’s life. With regard to the hypotheses on the table to be able to extend the opportunity to fathers as well, Lupi specified that it has yet to be verified whether it can be done with respect to the coverage available. For the time being, for there has been talk of bringing the additional months from one to three, of which only the first has a compensation of 80%, while the next ones would have it at 67%. An alternative even all three months at 67%, in order to make a real policy for the family.

How much will it cost the state, the beneficiaries

According to executive estimates, extending parental leave for mothers by a month, increasing the allowance from 30 to 80%, affects the State coffers for over one billion euros in three years. This can be seen from the dossier on the budget law. Considering the salary development – highlighted the technicians of the budget service of the Chamber and Senate -, the stratification of accesses / generations and the profile recorded in births in the recent period, the costs can thus be redetermined, in the prudential hypothesis of the use of the indemnity raised to 80% at the beginning of the parental leave period, the expenditure is divided as follows: 117 million in 2023, 204 million in 2024 and 210 million in 2025. The technical report estimates an audience of beneficiaries of 140,400 units, who would have resorted to the institute in question anyway, and a salary of 1,526 euros per month; for prudential purposes – it continues – the audience was increased by about a third (45,000 subjects) on the basis of an expansion effect (subjects who would not have resorted to parental leave in the absence of the increase in question).

How it works today

According to the legislation, parental leave is an optional period of absence from work which is granted to parents to take care of their children in their first years of life and satisfy their emotional and relational needs. At present, parental leave is available to parents who are in constant employment within the first 12 years of the child’s life for a total period between the two parents not exceeding ten months. In this case the parents are entitled to an indemnity equal to 30% of the salary.