Pros And Cons Of Maternity Leave

The website, whitehouse.gov it states that, “Only 39 percent report being able to take some type of paid family leave for the birth of a child.” Not all the workers were offered paid leave or any of the benefits it provides. Workers should be allowed to take time off to care for their child as they require extensive attention and care. The parents should be granted family rights along with individual rights.  The website also mentions how not only businesses but families will benefit as their economy overall would benefit since making full use of American talent requires policies that let workers better balance their family lives. Aside from work benefits parents will save money on baby essentials such as clothing, diapers, and formula as the expenses will be covered by their employer. Babies are healthier when their parents can afford them and cover all of their baby’s expenses. Along with raising a healthy child, maternal leave also impacts the mother’s health as they get to bond with their child without worrying about any job-related

America being one the most industrialized nations it is shocking to most to discover that it does not provide a more beneficial maternity leave when compared to its European counterparts. Not only is Europe leading the way for a lengthier leave of absence for new mothers, they also provide financial benefits to those families with newborns, to American society this is not considered a cultural norm, in fact it is even bizarre to some that having a child while in the work force would even be beneficial. Consequently, the difficulty in accessing a reasonable maternity leave in America creates long term effects on a child’s development.

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

The negative mind-set of employers on pregnant employees plays an important role in causing discrimination. Women’s performance ratings were seen to decline after being pregnant, from “superb” to “terrible” as shared by one victim of pregnancy discrimination. This is because they are perceived as “overly emotional, often irrational, physically limited, and less than committed to their jobs” as compared to their non-pregnant woman counterparts and are hence “less valuable and dependable.” There is also the problem of additional workload for remaining staff or the potential need to hire temporary staff to tide over the maternity leave period. To compound the issue, employers suffer uncertainty as to when the employee will return to work, or worse, the employee leaves for good after their maternity leave period. In fact, a study done shows that only 60% of women go back to work within two years of their maternity leave. It is hence unavoidable that employers, being cost sensitive, worry that all the extra cost incurred will ultimately become a meaningless loss if their pregnant employees do not return to work.

Paid maternity leave protects families from financial stress and bombardment. Per the Washington Post in the article “Defending Paid Parental leave” on September 2, 2009, “One of the side effects of the bad economy is that good ideas that sound expensive begin getting ignored. Take paid parental leave. Making sure that parents can afford to take time off to have a baby is a good idea on a number of fronts. It protects families from the choice of financial calamity or time with a newborn.”

The United States is the only country among 41 others that does not legally stipulate paid maternity leave, which leaves this legislation at the discretion of the individual states (Livingston, 2016). Currently, parents in California are covered by California State Disability Insurance, and receive 55% of their salary for six weeks (“About Paid Family Leave (PFL),” n.d.). California is one of four states that supplement the national Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guarantees unpaid maternity leave for 12 weeks (“Why So Few Women Take Maternity Leave | Time.com,” n.d.). It is my recommendation that the California House of Representatives vote to pass bill AB-568, an assembly bill that allows public school and community college employees fully paid maternity leave.

Paid family leave is highly supported amongst many employed parents in the United States, and is

The Urban Institute published a case study that promotes the creation of national paid family leave policy in the United States. In the study, it is shown that this issue has been debated countless times in the past. George H.W. Bush even vetoed an unpaid family leave act during his presidency. This displays the struggles of enacting policy relating to this issue. The lack of a national paid family leave program in the US has left working mothers with three options: “return to work immediately after childbirth, quit employment, or take unpaid leave” (Urban Institute, 2017, p.3). The issue with these options include, loss of pay, unemployment, or the lack of parental presence in a child’s early development. Moreover, although some private companies offer paid leave, less educated and lower income mother have little access to this paid leave, which exacerbates their financial instability, keeping them in a lower societal class. This study found that not only is the current system is inadequate, but it is also inequitable, which causes financial hardships across the nation. According to the study, there has even been a 32% decrease in income after childbirth. Although this is the current situation, some states have enacted a statewide paid family leave program, which displays

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

Ethical issues are a matter that every type of business and economy has to work on at some point. Companies, enterprises, agencies, universities, and schools, they all have to deal with moral and ethical matters, and since eventually most of us will enroll one of them, these issues should be a matter of concern to all of us. In a work environment, persecution, discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and bullying indicate an unethical conduct, and these types of behaviors are certainly difficult to manage in the workplace.

There is a direct relationship between the amount of leave one is granted, and breastfeeding rates. In a 2010 study it said the US could prevent 900 deaths of infants and save 13 billion dollars per year if 90% of women breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of their child’s life. As of 2010, only 43% of babies in America are breastfed for six months. Women are not able to breastfeed exclusively due to the high demands of work. Some believe that updating the Family Medical Leave Act will create debt but the findings of this study say it can actually help the economy and save lives.

Despite the advantages of paid parental leave, the United States trails behind other developed countries in guaranteeing these options. In fact, America is currently “one of the only two nations (the other being Papua New Guinea) that do not guarantee paid maternity leave to new mothers” (Baum II and Ruhm 333). Last year, according to the Pew Research Center, only fourteen percent of workers had access to paid family leave (Desilver). Instead of choosing to extend paid leave for their employees, many American businesses opt to offer unpaid family leave that is available to almost ninety

Access to paid leave is often identified as an issue that primarily concerns working mothers, yet paid leave is also critically important for working fathers. In a society that continues to evolve, it is even more imperative to address this unequal access with an increasing number of fathers who are serving as stay at home parents (International Labor Organization, 2014). Legislation that supports fathers having the support they need to prioritize family responsibilities can significantly increase the personal and economic well-being of their growing families (United States Department of Labor, 2015). Despite these advantages, the growing importance of paternal involvement with their newborns is not always supported in today’s society. The economic and social barriers fathers face may hinder them from taking paternity leave altogether, such as inadequate access to paid leave and outdated cultural norms about male breadwinners. According to survey data, most fathers in the United States only take one day of leave time for every month the typical mother takes (Harrington et al., 2014). This means that even in the twenty-first century, it appears to be more widely accepted for mothers to take off time from work to care for their families than fathers. Fewer than half the countries in the world provide men with access to paid leave to care for a new child, while virtually all provide paid maternity leave (ILO, 2014). Paid paternity leave and laws related to promote