U.S. Maternity Leave Benefits Are Still Dismal (Forbes) [View All]

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U.S. Maternity Leave Benefits Are Still Dismal

Heidi Brown, Forbes.com
05.04.09


Cindy Lobel had worked as an assistant professor of history at Lehman College in the Bronx for two years when she had her son Ben. Like many professional women, after giving birth, she got three months' leave--unpaid--from Lehman, which is part of the public City University of New York.

"I would have loved to stay home with him for a year, but there was no way we could afford it," says the Brooklyn mom, who's married to an online technology-news editor. Instead, she was able to stay home for her allotted 12 weeks by cobbling together a partially paid leave using the 20 sick days she had accrued at the college. Now, the professor is hoping she--and her son, now 8-months--don't get sick any time soon.

...And since the majority of women can't afford not to work for a full three months, they also tend to return to work sooner than the law dictates. Perhaps that's why in May 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 55% of first-time mothers were working six months after giving birth. In the early 1970s, only 25% were working 6 months after childbirth.


...To date, there are three states that offer paid-leave programs--California, New Jersey and Washington. The benefit plans are structured in a similar way: A small amount is deducted from the paycheck of nearly every working resident of the state. When a resident takes leave to care for a child or family member, a percentage of the person's wages is paid out as disability benefits. For California, the amount is 55%. In New Jersey, workers pay out 0.09% of their paycheck and can receive up to two-thirds of their weekly salary for six weeks. In Washington state, starting in October of this year, residents are entitled to up to $250 per week in disability payments for five weeks.


...Still, against the backdrop of the rest of the developed--and still developing--economies throughout the world, American women's maternity leave looks positively paltry.

www.forbes.com/2009/05/04/maternity-leave-laws-forbes-woman-wellbeing-pregnancy.html




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U.S. Policies on Maternity Leave "Among the Worst"


By Tamara Schweitzer | Feb 16, 2007
Inc. Magazine

The United States is one of only five countries that does not provide or require employers to provide some form of paid maternity leave, placing it behind a majority of the world when it comes to instituting family-oriented job policies, according to a new study.

In a study from McGill University's Institute for Health and Social Policy, the United States, Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea were the only countries out of 173 studied that didn't guarantee any paid leave for mothers. Among the 168 countries that do, 98 offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave.

Overall, the study's other major findings indicate that workplace policies in the United States for families -- such as paid sick days and support for breast-feeding -- are weaker than those in all high-income countries as well as many middle and low-income countries.

"More countries are providing the workplace protections that millions of Americans can only dream of," Jody Heymann, director of McGill's Institute for Health and Social Policy, who led study, said in a statement...

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www.inc.com/news/articles/200702/family.html








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave