https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/16/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/
Although I am not at the age in which having children is on my mind, I certainly know many people who are. In speaking to these people about having children and working at the same time, the concept of paid maternity and paternity leave often frequents the conversation, although the latter does not quite as much as the former. Unfortunately, this is almost always spoken of in a concerning way considering many mothers do not feel they are physically, mentally, and / or emotionally able to return to work after the short term often given by provided employers in the United States. What is striking to me, and many others, is that the United States is actually one of the worst countries in regards to providing paid maternity and paternity leave. Here is a little background into United States legislation on parental leave in comparison to other countries, and you may soon see why this is such an issue:
According to the Pew Research Center, “the U.S. is the only country among 41 [developed] nations [observed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)] that does not [federally] mandate any paid leave for new parents…as of April 2018.” Also, there are only a few states that mandate it on that level. The states that do, however, include “California, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia.” Although this information is a few years old, not much has changed since. Several of these countries provide over a year’s worth of paid leave, led by Estonia with eighty-six weeks as you can see in the figure to the right. The United States’ Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is the extent of employer paid leave requirements, and it is not much. This legislation only allocates employees twelve weeks of paid medical leave per year which includes within it maternity and paternity leave and pregnancy complications. Even so, this legislation only applies to certain employers and certain employees. The U.S. Department of Labor states that the “FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies with 50 or more employees” and that “Employees are eligible for leave if they have worked for their employer at least 12 months, at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles.” As you can see, there are quite a few restrictions included. My main concern of this legislation is that women who have pregnancy complications and must miss work prior to giving birth are losing allocated time for afterwards. This likely leads many new mothers to return to work sooner than expected and if they had complications, it could be sooner than is safe. Another concern is that this legislation does not include private companies which account for the majority of U.S. companies according to Forbes.
Although we can see that many other countries are providing well for new parents, nearly half of these allocate paid leave exclusively for mothers which is another issue in and of itself that we will touch on later. But first, you may be wondering something along the lines of “Why is a lack of paid parental leave an issue?” Personally, this feels to be yet another fight for reproductive rights. Reproduction is a necessary aspect of human life and if we do not continue to reproduce, the human race will face extinction. Not only that, many families must have two sources of income to survive which, when there is no access to paid leave, will force mothers and/or fathers to leave their child with another caretaker as a newborn. This is a fight to have a choice, similar to that of the pro-choice abortion support movement.
On a similar note, there is a need for paid paternity leave, as well, not just maternity leave. In an article titled “The Fight for Paternity is a Feminist One,” InStyle outlines some of the recent issues regarding paid leave, specifically for new fathers. It focuses on the stigma around fathers being main caretakers of their children. Alexis Ohanian, husband of professional tennis player Serena Williams, notes on the pushback and hate he has received over taking time off to raise his child after his wife nearly died during childbirth. Some critics of his spoke about how this is not the role of a father, a father should be the provider not the caretaker, etcetera. He replied back with the following statement: “When I’m feeding Olympia or doing her hair, it’s not about me taking over ‘mom duties,’ but me just being a parent, and that’s what this should come down to.” As one of feminism’s major tasks, dismantling stereotypical gender roles can be quite difficult, but here Alexis could not have said why better.
Another reason for making paternity leave a necessity worldwide is to improve inclusivity of the LGBTQ+ community. Same sex couples already experience plenty of discrimination in the medical and adoption worlds which prohibit them from seeing supportive doctors and even being able to adopt at all. There continues to be a lot of legislation that legally allows adoption agencies to refuse same sex couples on account of their sexuality. As for male same sex couples, prohibiting them paid paternity leave only contributes to the difficulties of raising a child in a society such as this. As I stated above, even though many developed countries have considerable paid leave time, only about half of them allocate paid leave time to fathers in addition to mothers.
All in all, paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers continues to be an issue of today’s world and of the feminist agenda as well.
Other Information Sources:
https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla
https://www.instyle.com/politics-social-issues/paternity-leave-is-feminist
Grace Blaha says
I learned about this issue in one of my classes last semester and it the lack of legislation protecting paid maternity leave in America continues to surprise me. I hadn’t thought a great deal about paternity leave or difficulties for LGBTQ+ individuals, but it’s unfortunate that they also experience barriers with receiving paid leave. I like that you compared other developed countries paid leave legislation, since it shows that there is a global precedent among the majority of developed countries that the United States falls short of.
jab7643 says
Hi Maddison! I really enjoyed reading your blog this week! It provided a lot of specific information about an issue that I believe to be extremely important. My mother raised me as a stay-at-home mother, and I have a friend who had a stay-at-home father raise her. We both had very similar experiences, yet there was a greater stigma surrounding her father’s decision. I also liked how you connected the idea of paid parental leave to reproductive rights. A person’s ability to raise their child is very influential in their decision to have children. In many discussions about reproductive rights, adoption and abortion are presented as the main solutions to the problem of raising children, yet making it easier for an individual to raise their children should be focused on more, in my opinion.
emp5781 says
I wrote about this topic in one of my blogs last semester and I was horrified to see the lack of support that parents gain. I enjoyed reading your blog and learning even more about the many ways in which our country needs to adapt, especially in terms of creating maternity and paternity leave to be more inclusive to the LGBTQ+. I have been learning in my HDFS class how fundamental those first 2 years of a childs life are and it makes me wonder how much damage our maternity leave is having on the children along side the parents.