My longtime girlfriend and I are having a baby due in January, it came as a surprise but we are both very happy.
She was hired by a swiss firm in april, moved in May, i came earlier in January, we're both here on employment contracts but the swiss regulations stipulate that we will recieve zero materinity leave as she has not lived in switzerland enough days to qualify for any benefits. We may have to pay all hospital expenses out of pocket as well. Which stinks naturally, in addition she must take 9 weeks off at possibly no pay. If she would have stayed home she would have recieved 3 months paid and the hospital paid, oh well, here we are.
Very much against what we hoped for we must find a daycare which accepts young infants. She is due in January so i've to find us a list to be on asap.
I don't understand why she would have to pay for the birth herself? If she is registered here then she must have Swiss health insurance which is obliged to pay for the birth. She needs to speak to her insurace company ASAP to find out about this. Most day care have baby places & take them from 3 months but places are scare check out your local parenting centre for advice as they may also be able to recommend a day mother as an alternative or until you can get a nursery place.
You sure it ́s yours? But seriously... congrats ́n ́all that. If you can ́t get into a daycare centre, there are a couple of nanny agencies. One is called Mary Poppins another is Liliput. I can ́t do links but even I could find them and more in a search of Nanny in Zurich.
The policy also reads that she must be here for a stated period of time. We are hopeful that they will not enforce this. She had insurance converage until she moved here, we hope this will help satisfy the requirement.
If it is a law, then that would be great news, but in reading the policy it seems as if it was a very bad idea to have a child in Switzerland.
cannot help you for the day care question but swiss Maternity law states that if you work at least 6 out of the 9 maternity months, then you are qualified to receive 80% of your salary for 14 weeks.
As for the health insurance I am also a bit surprised... why would they not pay?
Thank you for taking the time to write back. We had heard the same, but her HR department has confirmed that some law in 06' states that she must be here for the entire time. I've been writing back and forth to the canton but as everything is in german its taking me sometime to translate.
we're very surprised the policy read that way too, i guess we'll have to wait and see.
Regarding maternity leave, I understand that she may not be entitled to paid maternity leave because you need to be contributing to AVS for 9 months preceding the birth of the baby and working for 5 months during pregnancy in order to qualify. But you really need to double-check this.
On the other hand, I am quite sure that there are medical insurance companies who will pay for some ante-natal checks and also public hospital birth even if you bought the insurance when you were already pregnant. You need to call and check.
Now for the daycare, it depends on where you live but usually there are long waiting lists and it is very rare to get a place immediately so I would try to explore other possibilities as well (maman du jour, nannies, grandparents):
All in all, Switzerland is not the best place in the world for working mothers, but hospitals and birth centres are very good so it is not the worst place in the world to have babies...
Hi, Thank you for taking the time to reply. Yes, as you've explained the maternity leave is how we are being told by her employer. The insurance reads one way, but writing them today eluding to the payments they have replied that they will pay for the birth. I hope that stands.
I've been checking a few suggestions for kinder krippe and find they are priced at around 2000chf !! I do not see how anyone can afford such a high price. I work and make a decent salary as does she, but with such high rents, food, health insurance, and soon such high daycare costs, sadly enough, i don't see anyway we can afford to live here for very long.
How does the average swiss afford over 2000chf in daycare?
CHF2000 is normal for a full time place, that's around what I pay at the krippe my sons go to. If you are a working mother in Switzerland then you have to make sacrificies to do both.
Yes, around 2000 CHF is correct (even a bit more normally actually). Depending on your income, you may be eligable for subsidies though. What many women do is they work 60% and leave the child 2 days in day-care and 1 day with grandparent or father and thereby bring down the cost substantially (2 days cost around 900 CHF/month).
I think there is a higher percentage of Swiss staying at home with the kids, it's just us daft foreigners which go out to work and pay an arm and a leg in childcare.
Unfortunately I don't have any advice on the maternity details but just to say don't let the issues cloud the excitement. From a mum of a one-year old to parents to be, I wish you all the happiness with the little one when he or she comes along.
The day care costs are very high indeed. You can however also look at options like having an au pair or a "Maman de jour' which is a woman who looks after 3-4 kids in her home.
I do not know details in Zurich of this but should exist.
Many Swiss women do not work, actually, often as a woman people look at you strangely if you tell them you are not home at 2 in the afternoon because you work...
It is true that many peole say that often a woman's salry goes to pay the daycare and so what is the point? But one should also remember the pension etc so I think if one wants, working is still viable.
Also, remember your taxes will go down when you have a child, gviing you more disposable income.
Yes, it is true that they have a sort of a communist system and in public crèches they charge a certain percentage of your income. The upper threshold is around 2,000 CHF. You can pay less if your income is lower, they can calculate this for you, but basically if you have two good full-time salaries you will be in this highest bracket. You can either pay that and continue to work full-time or opt to work part-time and have the benefit of reducing the costs of childcare in addition to spending more time with your child. I know that daycare is expensive, but yes, you get used to it and you can afford it. I think it is the best possible model of childcare (if you can get it). I have tested different models so I really do know what I am talking about
Thank you all for the feedback. It is all very helpful and well appreciated.
We were able to confirm today with MSE that we will NOT receiving anything, oh well. We'll just save up and get through it. I guess we should have been more thorough in reading the Swiss policies with regards to maternity leave.
I'm just hoping the insurance doesn't give us another 'welcome' inturn.
FYI, with EU Citizens there are different criteria.
Sorry to hear that, no good news here but thought to mention that some daycares don't accept babies under certain age, the one my daughter goes have the min. of 9months but i do know of 4 months as well, i would recommend searching for few different daycares from now before all the sleepless nights arrive;-)
Yes, I agree that daycare definitely is the best, although most expensive, option. After having tried AuPair and Tagesmutter we turned to daycare and it was heaven.