Maternity Leave is Coming

Women do take maternity leave and is often times unpaid. Moreover, it is through a patchwork system where they use up their vacation time and their sick days. This is not how it should work; mothers should not have to stitch together time to recover from childbirth. There are women who want to get back to work as soon as they can and that is obviously fine, but for many women, the current situation forces them to return well before they want to. What if the pregnancy does not go according to plan and the baby is born prematurely? Then, women are forced to make some truly heart-breaking choices due to financial reasons. As a woman and a taxpayer myself, it is insulting to know that there is no real plan that allows mothers to recover.

The United States have a bad reputation when it comes to taking care of expectant mothers. When it comes to maternity leave, the U.S is one of the worst countries in the developed world: 12 weeks of unpaid leave ties for the shortest time off. According to the United Nations, the United States and Papua New Guinea are the only countries in the world that do not provide any paid time off for new mothers. In the U.S., federal law grants workers just 12 weeks of unpaid leave and the main disadvantage is that this policy is restricted: the expectant mother would have to work for a company with fifty or more employees, she’d have to have been there for over a year, she’d have to be a full-time salaried employee, as in, if she is a freelancer or a contractor, it does not apply to her, which means that 40% of workers are not covered under the federal law.

This unpaid leave system in the United States was proposed back in 1993. I do not see advantages to this U.S. policy and it seems that any legislation that specifically seeks to support women often faces vocal opposition. The government’s current economic status does not allow federal contribution, and I agree. It is the employer who needs to value the employees enough to apply a different policy. Paid leave is perceived as burdensome when in reality, simple changes can be made to the U.S. policy: Partially paid leave can be funded through a small payroll tax as an insurance plan that would cost employers little to nothing. The few companies that have implemented this idea saw no negative effects and their businesses made it work. As a matter of fact, paid parental leave can be beneficial for the parents, the children, society and the companies.