I would like to stress that the main object of the provisions to follow is to cater for the child and the family as a whole. But in doing so, it gives women a better choice.

Maternity Leave
Provided a woman has been employed in a period of six months before she gives birth, she can take 42 weeks off with full salary; or she can take the whole year off with 80 % of her salary. The father ought to take four weeks out of this 42 or 52 weeks period. These are minimum provisions, paid for by the National Insurance Scheme.

Child Benefit
Child benefit is not a social security benefit in the usual sense, but a key tool for compensating for expenses involved in providing for children. Child benefit redistributes wealth between families with and without children, and it is principally aimed at evening out income differences for the benefit of families with children.

Child benefit is tax-free. Child benefit applies to all children under 16 years who are domiciled in Norway.

Cash benefit – cash-to-care, is a transfer of cash to parents with children between the ages of one and three who do not or only partly make use of government subsidized nursery school places.

The purpose is to provide the family with more time to take care of their own children, and to give the family real choice in selecting the type of care they prefer for their children. It also intends to ensure greater fairness in the payments individual families receive from the government for child care, regardless of how the supervision of the child is arranged.

Special benefits for single mothers and fathers
One benefit is temporary assistance for the mother or father’s subsistence, called transitional benefit.

As of today it is 7568 kr ( about 100 000 yen). As a rule we can obtain this benefit for up to three years until the youngest child reaches the age of eight. In addition, you can obtain transitional benefits for up to two months before childbirth.

If you are undergoing essential education, you may obtain transitional benefit for an extra two years, provided that the youngest child has not reached the age of eight. If you have a child who requires special care, you can obtain transitional benefit until the child reaches the age of eighteen.

Child care benefit can be received when we have to leave our children with another person because of work or education away from home, or because we are registered with the employment office as a genuine job-seeker. If you become temporary ill, you can retain the benefit for up to one year. The benefit is granted at 70 % of the documented expenses, and up to a maximum set by the Parliament.

Level of Child Supports
The level of Child Support Payments from the other partner is set by the public authorities. It will as a general rule, amount to a percentage of his or her income. Basically, he or she must pay 11 percent for the first child, 18 percent for two children and 24 percent for three children.