Benefits And Benefits Of Parental Leave

Becoming a parent is beautiful yet stressful time in many people's lives. Emotions of joy and worry fill the mind of expecting parents as they work to provide a loving and financially stable home for their family. Both parents wish to actively support their child and their spouse during this time of transition, however, corporations are making this task difficult. Maternity leave is a benefit that most companies provide, but only for their female employees. Male employees are not given the same opportunity to share the responsibility of childcare with their wife or to develop a bond early on with their child. Providing fathers maternity leave would give them time to dedicate themselves to the growth of their child, allow the mother to heal from giving birth, and promote equality within the family unit and in the workplace.

Currently, there are some companies that have started giving parental leave for dads. Before this practice, the parent who commonly received paid leave was the pregnant mother and she had to work 40 hours a week for more than a year. It is important for everyone to get assistance when they need it, especially a mother who has given birth. Sometimes a father will be fired from his job because his company does not offer any parental leave. A mother who is working less than 30 hours is now able to get parental leave with full benefits. In addition to mothers and fathers, foster parents and parents who adopt are also receiving the benefits of parental leave.

It is vital to recognise the long-term value fathers uptake of parental leave brings to children’s wellbeing, reduced gender stereotyping, family economic stability and women’s employment prospects. Researchers Duvander and Jans (2009) found a decrease in gender stereotypes within the family and an increased involvement with children, which last as the child ages. The research revealed that the longer the length of leave taken by fathers, including where parents had separated, the greater amount of contact fathers had with their children as well as the greater amount of time they spent on household chores compared to fathers who took little to no leave (Duvander & Jans, 2009; Hass & Hwang, 2008; Ray, Gornick & Schmitt, 2010). Research has shown the important impact of fostering a relationship between both a child’s mother and father has shown a positive long term for a childs cognitive development and social and emotional wellbeing (Cabrera, Tamis-Lemonda, Bradley, Hofferth & Lamb, 2005; Sarkadi, Kristiansson, Oberklaid & Bremberg.

Research from Israel shows that when more time is given off to new fathers, the more their brain changes to better suit them to be a parent (Thompson). Being around the new child and caring for them allows the father to share responsibilities that a baby brings along. Having time to dedicate solely to the child gives the father the ability to bond with their baby. A study by two Columbia University professors discovered that fathers who are given time off (two or more weeks) are more involved with their child’s lives in nine months, proving that better parental relationships come from paid paternity leave (“Columbia News”). Paternity leave also creates a foundation of trust between father and child, and relieves the pressure put on mothers. When fathers are around immediately after the baby is born, mothers are not forced to do all the work around the house while caring for a newborn. The two-week (or more) time frame when fathers are around would allow for a period where both parents can get settled and adapt to taking care of the child. In Sweden, to qualify for government benefits, the father is required to take off two months from work before the child becomes eight years old. More research has proven that for every month that fathers took leave to take care of their child, the income of mothers increased about 7% (Johansson, Elly-Ann). Thus, paternity leave not only benefits the newborn child, but also mothers. This paid leave can give new parents the ability to get to know their child and adapt to the new responsibilities. There are a multitude of countries that provide paid paternity leave, and the United States is one of nine counties who does not have this option. There is no reason that fathers should not have an allotted time to spend at home with their child and spouse, and so this country should mandate the option of giving paid paternity

As we move into the new millennium more and more employers are allowing, some are even encouraging, their employees to bring their newborn babies to work with them. This is probably one of the greatest changes in child care norms that this country has seen in the past 30 years. Once upon a time, when a woman had a baby she almost always quit her job to raise her child, depending on her husband to support her and her child. Then along came the idea of maternity leave. This is when a woman takes a certain amount of time off to be with newborn. Once this time period was up, the woman still had a job to go back to. This meant that women no longer had to rely on their husbands for support. Unfortunately it also

Although current federal and state level legislation guarantee some protections, these policies do not cover all new parents. Parents must have worked a minimum of 5 months while contributing to State Disability Insurance to receive 55% of their salary during 6 weeks of their parental leave, and must have worked with an employer for 1 year to quality for 12 weeks of unpaid leave (“About Paid Family Leave (PFL),” n.d.). Parental leave is not accessible to all adults in the United States because of these requirements, and therefore makes early parenting even more challenging for working adults. Nationally, the trend for mothers on maternal leave has stagnated, although the US economy has expanded (Zagorsky, 2017).

Pregnancy and early child development is a fundamental aspect of human society, and is pertinent to the development of a successfully functioning community. The developmental and social progress of any civilization relies on children, as they will compose the future working population. Therefore, a mother or father’s involvement in the child’s development is of extreme importance, which is why family leave has been implemented all over the world. Family leave refers to the period of time granted to the employee to care for their newborn child. As communities evolve economically, financial stability is necessary, for what is perceived to be socially successful for a child’s development, which is why paid family leave is popular throughout the world’s nations. However, ABC News reports that “the U.S. is only one of three countries in the world that don't offer paid maternity leave” (Kim, 2015); the same is true for paternity leave. The United States government has an interesting track record dealing with family leave, but in order to analyze what the US government and advocacy groups have done to solve this issue, there first needs to be an understanding on why this issue is so difficult to resolve. The arguments that support and oppose paid family leave in the United States are equally valid, therefore causing a stalemate in the attempted policy making of legislative bodies.

Many believe that the success of a functioning community can be measured by the development of the youth, with the assumption that they would progress society as the future generation. Today’s children are tomorrow’s working class and the main contributors of social progress. Thus, the developmental stages in a child’s life is pertinent to success of a community, and in these stages parental involvement is a necessary component, which is why Family Leave is a policy implemented worldwide. Policy regarding family leave refers to the leave granted to employees in order to care for their newborn child. All countries, with the exception of two, have gone a step further by requiring employers to partially or fully compensate employees during family

The lack of a paid parental leave law in the country does not necessarily mean that it is absent in the U.S. labor market. Some generous and more progressive companies do recognize the importance of the leave to employees and do offer it. According to the Employee Benefits Survey of 2015, 21% of employers nationally offer some paid maternity leave while 17% offer some paid paternity/adoption leave. However, about a fifth don’t have any kind of protected maternity, paternity, or adoptive leave. (Ray, 8; Time, n. pag.)

It has been argued that maternity leave is not only harmful to business but also to women themselves, and that it can be a burden on businesses so they may think twice about employing women. (7) Where leave is given, whether paid or unpaid, businesses have to fill the position vacated by the parents and this in itself creates additional work and cost for employers who have to pay for job advertisements, background checks and time for interviews. They are also faced with the cost of training the temporary

As hard as it is to believe that the most “free” and “together” country isn’t all that “free and together” the United States of America has no government-sponsored paid family or medical leave program. With this little to no support from the government for people starting families, what is usually a happy and exciting event for families can be turned into a tragic ultimatum, leaving parents with the decision of whether they want to start a family or be able to pay their bills. In 1993, The Family and Medical Leave Act began to guarantee employees up to 12 weeks unpaid leave, but due to a number of exceptions, the FMLA only ended up covering about 60 percent of American workers with this guarantee (Dusenbury). In addition to the tough

The need for paid family leave has always been there, but finally is coming to the forefront of the presidential election in 2016. Both democratic front runners have policies that they have spoken about openly and even a few republicans had some bare bones policies, but those politicians did not make it this far. The best and most inclusive policy in my opinion is the one of Bernie Sanders. Sanders supports and is cosponsoring the FAMILY Act which would provide 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave to care for a sick loved one or for the birth of a child. Also, he supports the Healthy Families act that would guarantee 7 days of paid sick leave to every worker. The last part of his plan is to support the Guaranteed Paid Vacation

Skeptics of paid maternal leave believe such a policy would to be a burden to employers but the successful paid leave programs all around the world and even within the U.S. suggest otherwise. The majority of countries outside the U.S. sponsor paid leave directly and many of these countries provide up to a year of paid leave with Sweden being the most generous, offering forty weeks. Within the U.S. three states already have promising paid maternity leave insurance programs. California and New Jersey have parental leave laws that guarantee six weeks of parental leave (Chokshi, 2014). Additionally, these two states along with Hawaii and Rhode Island allow women to take additional time off through Temporary Disability Insurance to ease their transitions into parenthood after childbirth. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, based on 18 interviews with employers in various fields, researchers found that contrary to popular belief, paid family leave law in New Jersey did not lower employer morale or productivity. Findings in California by the Center for Economic and Policy Research indicate similar results employers reported that the paid leave program has either a neutral or positive effect and that “low-quality jobs benefited from longer periods of leave.” Their success, particularly California’s support the notion that access to maternity leave increases the chances of working mothers returning to work and research has found a nearly ten percent increase of pay for working mothers with children ages one to three (Rossin, 2012). Taken together, the findings all indicate that a maternal leave policy is beneficial to our economy and a wise economic investment for employers and states

There are some potential downsides to men having paid paternity leave. Most countries make parental leave open to both men and women; women take the vast majority of leave. When leave is long, this can have some consequences for women’s place in the labor market. For example, in Sweden parents have the right to a parental leave for up to 18 months, but women take nearly 85% of parental leave. The major goal of Swedish policy these days is to encourage men to take more parental leave; already there are two month “daddy only” leaves, which are lost to the couple if the father doesn’t take them. The problem with fathers taking paternity leave is that the fathers are scared to take leave for the fear that they may lose their jobs.

In the United States, the recent argument of paid parental leave has started a slight controversy among business owners and employees; many people would agree that employees deserve such leave during the early stages of parenthood. However, may business owners feel that by providing paid parental leave the business overall may suffer financially. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee paid parental leave. While most female citizens are guaranteed unpaid maternal leave for 12 weeks, the lack of paid maternal leave has a negative impact on new working mothers. The United States needs to implement a policy that mandates paid maternal leave in the United States.