Research Update: Paid Leave

Hello again – Lauren here with a quick research update. I will be narrowing my research topic of maternity rights and unequal parental expectations placed on men and women to one issue: unpaid parental leave in the USA. I realize that policies on paid parental leave in the United States are not consistent among states. In addition, in the few states that enforce paid or partially-paid leave, these policies take the form of maternity leave only¹ . There are some deeper issues here that I noticed immediately. First, the lack of parental leave among states in the US funnel women into sacrificing their career ambitions to run family-life. This subsequently increases the pre-existing wage gap between working men and women, as well as psychologically harms children who grow up without two equally-invested parental figures. Taking the negative impacts on children and women aside, the lack of paid leave and negligence in considering paternity leave for fathers ultimately harms society. There is a lack of diversity in the workforce, unrealistic pressure for men to work harder and longer to provide for the entire family, and unstable family dynamics. 

As I dove deeper into the subject, I wanted to find out how our country was addressing the issue in comparison to others around the globe. According to a study conducted in 2016 by the PEW Research Center, the USA is actually ranked last of 41 countries on paternity leave laws³ – meaning we really don’t consider men to have an important father role in the family. Our state of California is rather progressive on this issue, as in 1993 it became the first state in the US to offer paid paternity leave, enforcing six weeks of leave with partial payment via the FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act)². This gave mothers the opportunity to return to the workforce (which yielded a positive effect on female labor force participation and female wages). Most new parents can take a max of 12 weeks of unpaid leave without the threat of job loss. However, this only applies to workers who have worked 1,240 hours over 12 months at a large company (over 50 employers)¹ . Therefore, even the policies that exist do not apply to part-time workers, or workers in small businesses. Taking this into account, only 60% of American workers qualify for parental leave via the FML, and some may not be able to afford the sacrifice of a partial-wage leave. Thus, there is quite a lot of legislative work to do even within our progressive state to address this issue of paid leave. 

¹ https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/paternity-leave-laws-state-us/

² https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla³ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/16/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/