Essay on Babies in the Workplace

The website, whitehouse.gov it states that, “Only 39 percent report being able to take some type of paid family leave for the birth of a child.” Not all the workers were offered paid leave or any of the benefits it provides. Workers should be allowed to take time off to care for their child as they require extensive attention and care. The parents should be granted family rights along with individual rights.  The website also mentions how not only businesses but families will benefit as their economy overall would benefit since making full use of American talent requires policies that let workers better balance their family lives. Aside from work benefits parents will save money on baby essentials such as clothing, diapers, and formula as the expenses will be covered by their employer. Babies are healthier when their parents can afford them and cover all of their baby’s expenses. Along with raising a healthy child, maternal leave also impacts the mother’s health as they get to bond with their child without worrying about any job-related

America being one the most industrialized nations it is shocking to most to discover that it does not provide a more beneficial maternity leave when compared to its European counterparts. Not only is Europe leading the way for a lengthier leave of absence for new mothers, they also provide financial benefits to those families with newborns, to American society this is not considered a cultural norm, in fact it is even bizarre to some that having a child while in the work force would even be beneficial. Consequently, the difficulty in accessing a reasonable maternity leave in America creates long term effects on a child’s development.

Becoming a parent is beautiful yet stressful time in many people's lives. Emotions of joy and worry fill the mind of expecting parents as they work to provide a loving and financially stable home for their family. Both parents wish to actively support their child and their spouse during this time of transition, however, corporations are making this task difficult. Maternity leave is a benefit that most companies provide, but only for their female employees. Male employees are not given the same opportunity to share the responsibility of childcare with their wife or to develop a bond early on with their child. Providing fathers maternity leave would give them time to dedicate themselves to the growth of their child, allow the mother to heal from giving birth, and promote equality within the family unit and in the workplace.

As more women in the United States join the workforce, policy needs to reflect and benefit these working mothers. This creates a balancing act between gender equality, a popular issue amongst political candidates, and paid maternity leave. America cannot expect to have one without the other.

Paid maternity leave protects families from financial stress and bombardment. Per the Washington Post in the article “Defending Paid Parental leave” on September 2, 2009, “One of the side effects of the bad economy is that good ideas that sound expensive begin getting ignored. Take paid parental leave. Making sure that parents can afford to take time off to have a baby is a good idea on a number of fronts. It protects families from the choice of financial calamity or time with a newborn.”

Although current federal and state level legislation guarantee some protections, these policies do not cover all new parents. Parents must have worked a minimum of 5 months while contributing to State Disability Insurance to receive 55% of their salary during 6 weeks of their parental leave, and must have worked with an employer for 1 year to quality for 12 weeks of unpaid leave (“About Paid Family Leave (PFL),” n.d.). Parental leave is not accessible to all adults in the United States because of these requirements, and therefore makes early parenting even more challenging for working adults. Nationally, the trend for mothers on maternal leave has stagnated, although the US economy has expanded (Zagorsky, 2017).

Currently, the U.S. is the only modernized country not to offer paid leave to new mothers (Hall). The one legal protection offered by the U.S government is the Family and Medical Leave Act, or the FMLA. Since it became legislation in 1993, the FMLA has guaranteed a new mother job security for twelve weeks after her child is born. It does not, however, mandate pay. The FMLA also has other downsides. Women are only secured their twelve weeks of leave if they work a minimum of 1,250 hours a year and work for a company with fifty or more employees (Hall). This means that only two out of every five women qualify for protection (Hall). If a women does not qualify, it is left to her employer’s discretion to decide how long she will get to stay with her

Today there are two countries in the world that do not currently guarantee paid maternity leave for employed new mothers and/or expecting mothers, those countries are the United States and Papua New Guinea, according to the International Labour Organization, an United Nations agency, which recommends a minimum 18 week maternity leave (Rubin 2016, p.1). In recent years, the controversial issue of guaranteed maternal leave has been a prominent topic of debate amongst political activists and elites, particularly in the United States, where reform is a feasible option but has yet to be achieved. It is this absence of policy that serves to provide guaranteed maternal for all working mothers that has been linked to significant health related issues; these adverse effects not only impacts those mothers, but their children as well. Although paid maternal leave remains a controversial matter, policy reform that implements such leave is not only a feasible option in the United States, both economically and politically, it is an ethical necessity in order to facilitate the well-being of American women. Thus, in order to work toward ethical political/governmental policy that supports the well-being of women in the United States’ workforce, it is crucial that guaranteed paid maternal policy is implemented.

The government understood the difficulty of balancing work and childcare. As mentioned previously, FMLA permits mother to take medical leave for the period of time during which they are physically unable to work due to pregnancy, childbirth, recovery and related medical conditions. Additionally, both parents to take leave for the birth of a child, and for the placement of a child for adoption or foster. Thus, the leave allows the parents to bond with their child within one year of the child’s birth or placement. Nevertheless, according Gomby and Pei (2009), the two most important determinants of whether parents take leave are if the leave is paid and job-protected. Although FMLA provides job protection, it is unpaid, therefore many parents decide not to take it or may return to work earlier than they would have wanted to so they can support their

The lack of a paid parental leave law in the country does not necessarily mean that it is absent in the U.S. labor market. Some generous and more progressive companies do recognize the importance of the leave to employees and do offer it. According to the Employee Benefits Survey of 2015, 21% of employers nationally offer some paid maternity leave while 17% offer some paid paternity/adoption leave. However, about a fifth don’t have any kind of protected maternity, paternity, or adoptive leave. (Ray, 8; Time, n. pag.)

Recently women’s rights and women’s equality in the workplace has come back to the fore as a topic for discussion in government agencies and the United Nations. Whilst this is a very important topic, when it comes to time off from work when a new child is born, women in the US have some provision, whereas men have none.

Paid maternity leave is a specific period of time allotted by one’s employer in which a woman is able to be on paid leave after having a child. Most, if not all developed countries in the world offer paid maternity leave to it’s expectant women. However, paid maternity leave is considered a privilege, not a right in the United States and it is not mandated to be offered by employers. Although the length of paid leave varies from country to country, it is evident that countries around the world see value in giving women time with their new children while maintaining financial stability. The most common form of maternity leave around the world includes around 12 weeks of paid leave of some sort which is usually mandated by the country 's government, while the United States is one of three developed countries in the world who do not have mandated paid maternity leave laws in place. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 3 out of 4 people, or 76% of the U.S. population, would like to see policies in place mandating paid maternity leave. This essay will discuss paid maternity leave in great detail touching upon the history of maternity leave, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the components of generalized maternity leave, how other countries utilize this policy, and how the U.S can benefit from it, along with other agains.

With all these people off for maternity/paternity leave the companies money will go down,there won’t be many people working and because of this it is guaranteed companies will be determined or shut down. If the government does not make paternity leave a law than we will be in a better place as a country even as one earth because,if they were to make this law worldwide are shipments that carry are goods/needs will drastically decrease all because,of paternity leave. This may sound crazy that one law as little as this can change so much but it can,this situation is like dominoes you knock one down the whole line gets messed up,and that’s what would happen. Some may say it’s a small change but it’s not. When you take off for maternity leave you have to hire a temp,to fill in and it takes a long process,and in order for this to happen...according to (Fast company) “They have to pay extra for a temp. Than they have to take the time and money to train a temp.” Also if the company is in the process of, important projects have to be put on hold till the regular employee comes back which again will put the business on the line.However People who disagree, with this statement may say something along the lines of,finding a temp is easy you,can just call an agency or look one up and boom you have a new temp.This is a good statement although the process is not always easy because you need a temp that is well educated in the field and not some,rookie so the process to find a good temp will take a while. Furthermore even if,the temp is well educated in the field you would still have to train them which takes weeks even months to go

To break the cycle of disadvantage we should look at it from the perspective of a woman in the workplace. Organisational culture needs to shift away from the perceived ideal worker and begin to embrace a new model to support women in the paid workforce. Research has shown that providing family friend benefits does not further segregate women. The implementation of family friendly programs has shown to broadly impact the workplace by increasing commitment and productivity (Casper & Buffardi 2004). Research shows policies have a positive impact on employees regardless of whether they are likely to use the flexibility or not (Bagilhole, 2006, Roehling et al. 2001). Social expectations that see the ideal worker as someone who works full-time for their entire working life is a model designed for men and is not a practical or equitable expectation for women. Organisations need to redesign jobs and careers to support women to work flexibly to meet carer responsibilities while continuing to be productive members of the workforce. Women should be provided with access to paid parental leave entitlement and full superannuation for any period of absence, this will ensure that women retire in an equitable position. Women retuning to work after periods of parental leave, should be supported to update their skills through access to training aimed at overcoming skills gaps. Organisations should provide a comfortable place for breastfeeding and additional breaks to meet these

Access to paid leave is often identified as an issue that primarily concerns working mothers, yet paid leave is also critically important for working fathers. In a society that continues to evolve, it is even more imperative to address this unequal access with an increasing number of fathers who are serving as stay at home parents (International Labor Organization, 2014). Legislation that supports fathers having the support they need to prioritize family responsibilities can significantly increase the personal and economic well-being of their growing families (United States Department of Labor, 2015). Despite these advantages, the growing importance of paternal involvement with their newborns is not always supported in today’s society. The economic and social barriers fathers face may hinder them from taking paternity leave altogether, such as inadequate access to paid leave and outdated cultural norms about male breadwinners. According to survey data, most fathers in the United States only take one day of leave time for every month the typical mother takes (Harrington et al., 2014). This means that even in the twenty-first century, it appears to be more widely accepted for mothers to take off time from work to care for their families than fathers. Fewer than half the countries in the world provide men with access to paid leave to care for a new child, while virtually all provide paid maternity leave (ILO, 2014). Paid paternity leave and laws related to promote