Croatia wants families with more children, but does not create the conditions for them, writes Families 3plus in their recent press release.
The Association of Families with Three or More Children (Families 3plus) has submitted its comments on the proposed amendments to the Maternity and Parental Leave Benefits Act. Part of the proposals that the Association sent in 2022 and which were not accepted then, have now been adopted, although still there is plenty of room for improvement.
“We are pleased that our request was accepted and the number of days for paternity leave was increased to 20 days for one child and 30 days for the birth of twins, triplets or more children. However, the organizational needs of multi-member families are much larger, and now we have requested that fathers of third children also have the right to 30 days of paternity leave and every subsequent child. We remind you that the number of days that belong to fathers in other neighboring countries and for one child it is 30 days (e.g. Slovenia), and we believe that there is room for fathers in multi-member enable families to be more involved and participate in the earliest age of children”, commented the president of the association Kristian Jambrošić.
The association is also advocating for increased one-time financial support for newborns, and criticizes the recent guidelines set which state that children born in January of this year will receive the previous benefit amount.