Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/maternity-leave/)
A recent study found that women who take maternity leave tend to be college educated, white and married. This injustice became clear to Kristin Budde one night after seeing one of her pregnant patients.
Instead of celebrating progress, we have to ask why we fare so poorly compared to many other countries. From being underpaid to losing abortion access, it’s a depressing list. But let’s not look away.
The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act has been bobbing around Congress since 2000. Now that the president has thrown his weight behind it let’s get it done.
Sen. Gillibrand and Rep. DeLauro recently introduced a bill that could end the intolerable choices so many working families face when a baby is born or a family member falls ill. Twelve weeks of partially paid leave would help untold numbers of women keep their jobs.
Some employers give adoptive parents a raw deal. But fortunately there are signs of improvement among companies on Working Mother’s top-100 employer list.
In this society we toss the placenta, or afterbirth, despite the nutritional benefits that traditional medical practitioners have long understood. That’s analogous to the way we also trash the maternal support services, or “political afterbirth,” that should sustain our mothers.
The Family Medical Leave Act was passed 20 years ago and despite the hue and cry, the sky did not fall on employers or the economy. It’s time to extend these vital protections to more workers and more obligations.
Amid calls for Turkish women to have more children, a proposal to lengthen the paid maternity leave allowance raises fears that it may actually hinder women’s work force participation.
Choice is often not a choice at all when a woman lacks money and social supports. That long-term anti-natal reality–rather than the nine months of pregnancy–should be the focus of both sides of this red-hot debate.
It’s time to do something about the lack of paid parental leave in the United States. Does anyone realize that this deprivation leaves us in the company of such under-developed countries as Papua New Guinea and Swaziland?