Mandating Maternity Leave
I have a new granddaughter and have been fortunate to be able to take a little time away from work to help out my daughter and enjoy being a grandma! Though I have raised three children and this is my third grandchild, I am always surprised at the amount of time and energy a baby requires. For the past two weeks, my days have revolved around feeding, burping, changing, dressing, rocking, snuggling, and just watching my granddaughter as she begins to become aware of her world. As my daughter isn’t getting much rest at night, I have tried to allow her that time during the day. As she has enjoyed bonding with her daughter, I have delighted in the bonding experience with both my granddaughter and daughter.
Realizing last week that holding the baby all the time was likely setting a bad precedent, I actually put her down to sleep and spent some time catching up on my HR reading. As I am in “grandma mode,” a reading on mandated maternity leave benefits caught my interest.
It was enlightening to see some of the ways that maternity leave is implemented throughout the world.
*Canada offers the mother paid leave of absence from employment for 17 weeks.
*France offers paid leave of 16 weeks (six weeks before the baby is born and ten weeks after giving birth) for the first child. This increases for subsequent children.
*The United Kingdom offers a leave of 18 weeks. The first 6 weeks are paid at 90%; the next 12 weeks are paid at a fixed rate.
*Brazil’s constitution requires paid leave of 120 days (28 days before giving before and 91 days after).
*China grants maternity leave for 90 days at full salary.
According to statistics in the 2007 “Work, Family, and Equity Index”, 168 out of 173 countries offer paid maternity leave and 98 countries offer 14 or more weeks of maternity leave! The United States is one of 5 countries that guarantee no paid leave for new mothers. The others are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua, New Guinea. (I have to admit, I didn’t know all of these were countries.)
We thought we had made an amazing breakthrough when the Family Medical Leave Act was implemented and employers with more than 50 employees were obligated to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year for the birth of a child. As the country has been arguing amongst itself on “family values”, we have not paid attention to how other countries value families. We may “have come a long way, baby,” but it seems we still have a long way to go!
Photo Credit: Contra Costa Times
October 5th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Great post; this is very informative. I’ve read about this before, but I think this will open a lot of eyes for people that didn’t know how the U.S. ranks so poorly in this regard.
One thing that should be mentioned as well is that (at least so far as I know) in other countries, maternity and paternity leave are generally paid for by the government rather than employers.
October 5th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
“Who’s paying for it?” That’s the first question that sprung to mind and it sounds like Tim is thinking along the same lines. Maybe as a follow-up post, you could address who is paying in each of those countries you mention.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:06 am
In the UK now, you can get up to 1 years leave and the paid Statutory Maternity Pay has increased to 39 weeks, with the 1st 6 being at 90% of their average earnings while the remaining 33 is at approx £123 (approx $190). The Government reduces the companies tax liability by 92% of the Maternity Pay paid to employees. When a mother is on leave she can also choose to go to work for fully paid Keep In Touch (KIT) days, to attend meetigs, team building sessions or generally just keep in touch, to ease her transition back to work.
I have never really understood how people (OK… I really mean women) cope in the US… To give birth then rush back to work, or go unpaid and/or have to get childcare at such a young age. And 12 weeks is still not very long. What happens if your child is sick when all your leave is up? I suppose that in a perfect world people would have saved lots of money, the main bread winner earns enough so that one of the parents can stay at home, and there would never be any sicknes!
Shall I start on how much Annual leave we are entitled to…. NO that would probably be too mean.