A provision on shortening the parental leave in Iceland has been taken out of a bill presented by the minister for social affairs, as Sigrídur Ingibjörg Ingadóttir, chairperson of the Athingi Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee, stated last weekend.
Photo by Páll Stefánsson.
The plan had been to shorten the initial parental leave from nine to eight months with the possibility to take the last month after three years, visir.is reports. These plans were harshly criticized; midwives argued the welfare of infants was being compromised.
The Social Affairs Committee is currently working on other ways to meet an ISK 1.2 billion (USD 9.5 million, EUR 6.5 million) cutback and aims to finish its work on the bill tonight, but Ingadóttir would not mention what other savings measures were being discussed.
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