Welcome to SheKos! SheKos is a diary series for all Kossacks to explore issues related to feminism, women's history, and equality. We seek to find solutions within and beyond the Democratic Party to improve the lives of women -- and men -- regardless of race, sexual orientation, or economic status. We believe that women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights.
We are so fortunate to live here in the United States, land of close attention to Family Values. What's more American than motherhood and apple pie?
Well, it turns out that the needs of business rank up at the top, actually.
Our 2008 Democratic party platform states,
It's time we stop just talking about family values, and start pursuing policies that truly value families. We will expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to reach millions more workers than are currently covered, and we will enable workers to take leave to care for an elderly parent, address domestic violence and sexual assault, or attend a parent-teacher conference.
(By the way, the 2008 Republican Party platform is conspicuously silent on the needs of working parents, despite the aforementioned devotion to Family Values. Only keeping Teh Gays away from family-formation is deemed worthy of a place in their platform. They love the unborn; they hate the born.)
Why do we need paid family leave?
Family leave is often equated to maternity leave, which is one of the most critical components of family leave, but it's also bigger than that. Many employees, whether parents of young children or children of aging and sick parents, may need to take time off to help care for these dependents.
Most of us may have aging parents at some point who need our attention. Those of us with children also need time off during the critical period of infancy. Young infants need their parents - particularly their mothers if they are breastfeeding. Nursing takes significant quantities of parental time. New mothers often spend 6-8 hours a day breastfeeding. Many of them return to work sooner than they would have liked because they need the money. (Time and a private space to pump breast milk during the work day - in addition to a refrigerator in which to store the milk - is an additional need new mothers have if they do return to work.)
Here in the U.S. where our infant mortality rate is among the highest in the developed world, establishing a positive and healthy infant-parent relationship is an important goal. The ability to take time off work is critical to establishing this relationship - and having pay during the time off is one way to facilitate it. Paid time off supports healthy families and healthy children.
However, few of us here in the U.S. have paid time off and even unpaid time off is restricted to only some employees. In 1993, Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, which put into place the requirement that companies employing at least 50 workers would be required to allow their employees (those who have worked at least 1,250 hours in the past 12 months, that is) to take up to 12 weeks a year of unpaid leave to care for a new child or seriously ill family member.
The FMLA was better than nothing, but it excluded quite a few categories of workers:
- Part time workers
- Those working in a business with fewer than 50 employees
- Those in the airline industry
- Those who need to care for an ill domestic partner
- Those who need to care for a family member without a serious illness
- Those who need time off for health care such as a check-up.
Some states have reduced the number of employees requirement to smaller businesses, while others have expanded the definition of family to include domestic partners and more distant family members such as in-laws and grandparents.
So why don't we require employers to support these needs? Because it would be too much of a burden on business, is the most common explanation.
What do other countries do?
Surely other countries also have the same problem putting a burden on the businesses based in their countries. The U.S. can't be so different from those other countries around the world - can we? After all, we love mothers, children, and family values.
Wikipedia has a fascinating table showing the parental leave available in dozens of countries around the world. I figured we would not be as progressive as Europe when it came to family leave, but I was quite interested to see that the U.S. is near the bottom worldwide when it comes to government regulation of family leave for employees.
Surprisingly, perhaps, virtually all countries around the world require paid maternity leave. Only three countries in the world do not provide paid maternity leave besides the U.S. - Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland. Several also require paid paternity leave.
Let me repeat. Every country in Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, and most African countries, have policies for paid time off for new mothers. Many have additional family leave benefits as well.
Some notable examples:
Most of Africa provides approximately 3 months at part or full pay for maternity leave.
Same with South America.
Canada gives 55% of pay for a year following the birth, with the weeks shared between mother and father.
Australia gives 18 weeks at the federal minimum wage for both mothers and fathers (starting 2011) and 52 weeks unpaid for both mothers and fathers.
Desperately poor Bangladesh gives mothers 16 weeks at full pay.
Vietnam gives 4-6 months at 100% pay.
Austria gives 16 weeks at 100% pay.
Denmark gives 52 weeks of paid leave, split between the parents (but dads get minimum of 2 weeks).
Italy gives 5 months at 80% pay.
Norway gives 54 weeks at 80% or 44 weeks at 100%; the 3 weeks prior to birth and 6 weeks after must be taken. (I worked up to the day before both of my kids were born, and went into early labor at work both times. Having three weeks off would have really been a luxury.)
Russia offers paid leave up to 18 months after the birth.
Spain gives 16 weeks at full pay and up to three years unpaid.
Sweden gives paid leave up to 16 months after birth
In the UK, you can get 39 weeks paid, but it is rising to 52 weeks at 90% of pay in April of next year.
So Bangladesh can give paid maternity leave but it's too big a burden on American businesses to do so. Basically, almost anywhere in the world outside of Antarctica would be a better place for a working parent to have a baby than here in the United States, where we Love And Care For Families.
We've got billions to spend on wars overseas, including on Afghanistan where mothers receive 90 days following the birth at full pay, and Iraq where mothers get 62 days at 100% pay. But our legislators don't have the guts to either have businesses or the government help fund leave to support growing families, or those with a sick family member.
Is there any prospect of the U.S. joining the rest of the world in supporting families?
In March, Pete Stark introduced H.R. 1723, the Family Leave Insurance Act of 2009. (Chris Dodd has introduced a similar bill in the Senate.) The bill would provide 12 weeks of paid leave per 12 months to care for a new child or an ill family member or domestic partner, treat one's own illness, or deal with issues associated with a family member's deployment. The costs for the bill would be shared by employers and employees. Pay would drop as salary rises, so that the lowest-wage workers would receive full pay and the highest-paid would get up to 45% of pay. This bill has been referred to several committees, but has not yet received a vote.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been quoted as being prepared to "wage all-out war" against paid family leave. And there are a lot of people in Congress who will support the Chamber's position.
Let's face it - this country values businesses far more than they value families and children. The unborn may be sacred, but once they're born you're on your own.
Until the day such a bill passes, we can only hope that someday we'll have the opportunity to catch up with the family leave policies of far less developed nations.
SheKos is open to your submissions. Please email Angry Mouse at angrymouse.grrr@gmail.com with your ideas.