Men to take parental leaves
Pay tax to use social media
The professional ethos of law firms discourages men from taking parental leave, a new Finnish-canadian study shows. Carried out by the University of Eastern Finland and TÉLUQ University in Quebec, the study found that the professional culture in law firms rests on traditional masculine ideology, with men regarded as the providers for their families.
This view does not encourage men to combine their professional career and child care. The findings were reported in the International Journal of the Legal Profession, phys.org wrote.
The fact that few male lawyers take parental leave is an indication of gender inequality within the legal profession.
“In law firms, family policies and flexible working arrangements are mainly targeted at women, and this has a negative impact on women’s career development. If fathers took a more active role in child care, it would facilitate the emergence of a professional culture that is more family-friendly. In the process, it is also likely that this would reduce gender bias in the division of legal tasks and career paths within law firms,” researcher Marta Choroszewicz from the University of Eastern Finland explained.
The study examined male lawyers’ motives behind taking or not taking paternity and parental leaves in law firms based in Helsinki, Finland, and in Montreal, Canada. Canadian male lawyers were significantly less keen to take paternity leave than their Finnish colleagues. This is partly explained by Finland’s longer paternity leave tradition. Instead of taking paternity leave, Canadian male lawyers preferred taking annual holiday when their child was born.
The greater popularity of paternity leave in Finland is also explained by organizational differences between Finnish and Canadian law firms. In Finland, young lawyers typically work as members of a team, and they for example face lower expectations to attract new clients than their Canadian colleagues. In Canada, the work revolves more around the individual, and even young lawyers are expected to contribute to marketing, networking and new client recruitment.
Preliminary findings from Finland show that there, too, the attitudes to paternity leave vary from one generation to the next. Law firm partners representing the post World War II generation and Generation X often did not take paternity leave when their children were small, and they do not necessarily understand the need of today’s young male lawyers to participate in early child care. In many law firms, paternity leaves are still regarded as optional, compared to, for example, maternity leaves.
“It is not enough that men’s right to parental leave is guaranteed by legislation. We also need organizational solutions, collegial encouragement and examples set by male law firm partners,” Choroszewicz points out.
In Finland, the right to paternity leave was enacted in legislation in 1978. In 2013, the length of paternity leave was extended to nine weeks. In Canada, taking paternity leave has been possible since 2006, but only in the province of Quebec, and the length is only half of what it is in Finland. The Ugandan government has imposed taxes on social media to raise money for the country and to avoid donor aid, a lawmaker told CNN.
Ugandans will have to cough up 200 Ugandan shillings ($0.05) a day to use popular platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp, cnn.com wrote.
President Museveni, who has ruled the country since 1986, is reported in local media as saying that social media encourages gossip.
Museveni said he will sign the bill passed by the country’s parliament once presented for his approval.
“Dear Uganda, I will not hesitate to sign the Social Media Bill into law once it lands on my desk. Social Media bill is seeking to tax every Ugandan using all social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Insta, Whatsapp on a daily basis,” Museveni said in a tweet.
Parliamentary spokesman Chris Obore defended the law which comes into effect July 1, saying that as more Ugandans use social media it should become an important source of revenue for the country.
“The government is trying not to over rely on donor funding. It is just a redistributive tax as the government is out to look for money from those who have to finance projects,” Obore said.
He added: “The tax is very small. 200 shillings in Uganda to a dollar is very negligible. People in Uganda will not find it too expensive.”
However, many Ugandans on social media see the tax as a government crackdown on free speech.
Reuters reported the tax would be implemented through mobile phone operators on individual SIM cards used to access social media.
The Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) published a report in 2016 that argued that the Ugandan government was stifling digital rights.
Over two million Ugandans are active on Facebook, according to official figures. This new tax comes as neighboring country Tanzania recently introduced a controversial fee of $930 on bloggers and online publishers, a decision that is being challenged by local activists in court.
And in Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a cybercrimes bill, that criminalizes the publication of fake news and imposes heavy fines and a two-year jail term for those found guilty, despite pressure from international media rights group to stop it.