The City of Zagreb on Friday put to public consultation the decision abolishing grants for stay-at-home parent after their child reaches the age of seven, and the grant for those with younger children is reduced to HRK 1,000 per month.

This decision has today been sent to public consultation of 30 days, and a document has been released analysing the demographic and financial effects of the measure, as well as its effects on the inclusion of women in the labour market and children in educational institutions.

“There will no longer be new applications for the scheme, only regulating the rights of existing beneficiaries, and the right to use the measure is reduced to seven years of age of the child,” Zagreb Deputy Mayor Danijela Dolenec said in a statement.

This means that the beneficiaries whose children have already reached the age of seven or more will no longer be eligible for the grant as of 30 April 2022, which creates a period in which they can adapt to the new circumstances, that is, they can look for a job and get a job while they are still using the grant.

The grant for beneficiaries who have children under the age of seven will be reduced to HRK 1,000 per month as of 1 May.

They can use the measure until their child reaches the age of seven, but they can also find a job immediately and they are also allowed to enroll their child in kindergarten in May, said Dolenec.

€240m spent on this scheme to date

The analysis attached to the public debate shows that the City of Zagreb has spent HRK 1.8 billion on this scheme since 2016, and if applications had not been suspended in August, the monthly budget expense for that measure would be HRK 700 million.

“The amount is equivalent to the construction of 27 new kindergartens in Zagreb”, said Dolenec, adding that the measure was unsustainable for the budget.

She underscored that the demographic effect of the measure was small, that is dubious.

“For families with three and more children there is a small increase in the period when the measure was introduced, but the total number of live births has not risen,” she pointed out.

She said they expected to get different perspectives on the measure in the public consultation and that they expected to receive support.