The U.S. is one of three nations of 181 studied by Harvard and McGill universities that don’t guarantee working mothers leave with compensation, and researchers say it pays the price in lost productivity and health risks for children. The two other countries are Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
-- "America Last Among Peers With No Paid Maternity Leave," Bloomberg News, Feb 21, 11
A 2007 article had the U.S. keeping company with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland and Lesotho. Good to know that Lesotho -- home of the $1600 annual gross domestic product -- has changed since then.
A whopping two U.S. states offer paid family leave benefits:
New Jersey and California, have leave programs that offer parents cash benefits, while Rhode Island, Hawaii, and New York provide some disability payments to new mothers. Meanwhile, Washington state, which passed a paid parental leave law but has so far been unable to pay for it, is in limbo. Without any income to keep them afloat during their time off, a substantial minority of those covered by the federal leave law don't wind up taking the leave to which they're entitled. Some 2.73 million workers surveyed over an 18-month period said they didn't take FMLA leave because they couldn't afford to.
-- "The Confusing State of Family Leave Policies," Slate, Aug 17, 10
I got to take sixteen weeks paid leave, thanks to a combination of circumstances: I live in California; I had a c-section, thereby making me eligible for two weeks more of paid disability than I would have gotten had I delivered vaginally; I have an employer who also offers paid disability for giving birth; the employer also offered a week of paid leave for "bonding," and that same employer also has a vacation policy that links seniority and vacation time off, so I was able to dip into the 20 days a year I get annually to stretch my leave out to the full sixteen weeks.
My employer is not stupid: BLS data has shown that employers with generous family leave policies do a better job of retaining workers than their stingier counterparts, and any workplace expert will tell you that retention is typically cheaper than churn. But my situation -- which is a perfect collision between geography and corporate policy -- should not be special, or an exception. Should it?
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