It is well known that Canada is a vast country with a sparse population. With the gradual legalization of same-sex marriage and the increasing number of DINK families, population aging has become Canada's most pressing concern. Among these, Canada's immigration policy is one of the government's strategies to seek population growth and rejuvenation, and encouraging childbirth is another. The saying, "If you can't make a living in Canada, just have a few more children and let the government support them," is not entirely baseless. Canada's parental leave benefits are very generous, and they are available not only to mothers but also to fathers.
In Canada, as long as you have a formal job and pay your Employment Insurance (EI) premiums on time and in full, you can apply for comprehensive benefits from Service Canada if you lose your job through no fault of your own, and pregnancy and childcare fall into this category. The duration of EI benefits for pregnancy and childcare is 12 months, available to both men and women.
Having children in Canada is not like in China where you have elders to help manage things. Here, from taking care of the pregnant woman to raising the child, shopping, and cooking, everything must be done by the couple themselves. A father taking parental leave is necessary and is also a very common social phenomenon.
Generous parental leave benefits can also help Canadian women avoid the wave of layoffs during economic downturns. Canadian law stipulates that as long as a woman is on parental leave, her employer cannot deprive her of her right to work, meaning she cannot be dismissed, and she can return to her position unconditionally after her leave ends.
There are also some middle-income families where women rush to find a job before planning to have children, letting the government pay to raise the children. A friend of mine married an Australian-Chinese wife two years ago. Because it was his second marriage and he was older, he was determined to complete his "procreation" mission. As soon as his wife received her work permit, she immediately found a job as a researcher in a university laboratory, and she became pregnant shortly after.
When the child was born, her working hours just met the conditions for receiving EI. After taking 12 months of parental leave, she told me shortly after returning to work that she was preparing to get pregnant again. I teased her that the contribution she made to her workplace was not even as much as the parental leave she enjoyed. She argued, "EI is paid by the government, not by the company, so the company won't feel the burden. My husband's workplace was busy this time, so he didn't even take his full parental leave; he can't take less next time."
It seems that the reason why the Canadian middle-class "nuclear family" has a much higher willingness to have multiple children than in the United States is perhaps precisely because of the good benefits for having children, especially the great appeal of parental leave, right?