Maternity leave in America
25/6/11 10:11![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsLet's try this again, as I feel it is an important matter to discuss.
America stands almost alone without legislation for paid maternity leave. American mothers, under the Family and Medical Leave Act are allowed only 12 weeks of unpaid leave before returning to work. To make it worse, those who work for companies with fewer than 50 employees or have worked less than 1,250 hours in the past year are not covered under the Act and are entitled to no time off. While some companies have provided their own paid maternity leave policies these jobs are scarce. A 2008 report found that only 16% of companies with more than 100 workers provide 100% paid maternity leave for the legislated period. Women can not rely on the goodwill of their employers, legislation is sorely needed to ensure the rights of working mothers.
Almost every other country in the world, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Cuba and Iraq have paid maternity leave legislation of some sort. Most nations have laws providing for time off ranging from 14 to 96 weeks in a mixture of paid and unpaid time and varying levels of pay. In the Czech Republic mothers can take up to 4 years off, paid for by the state. Sweden provides 16 months, with the cost shared between the government and the employer at 80% of the the mothers salary. The UK laws provide for 39 weeks paid, by the employer with an additional 13 weeks unpaid. Canada provides 52 weeks, paid for by the government at 55% of your salary with an additional 35 weeks of parental leave to be shared with your partner, covered under our Employment Insurance program.
The benefits of maternity leave are vast for both the mother and child. Mothers without maternity leave or shorter periods are, not surprisingly, more likely to become depressed. Returning to work after childbirth makes breastfeeding, with all it's health benefits, all but impossible. Studies have shown that fewer than 12 weeks maternity leave have behavioral effects on the child in the long term. They have lower cognitive test scores, reach milestones later and exhibit behavioral problems as they age. As they reach school age lower tests scores are noted. There are even results being shown in new studies in the field of epigenetics that may prove that early social interaction influences the marks that effect serotonin levels which may lead to adult depression. Longer maternity leaves have been shown to decrease early childhood mortality rates due to better monitoring of the child's health or accident prevention. These benefits clearly demonstrate the the short and long term beneficial effects of longer maternity leaves for the betterment of society.
Many of you probably believe the government should not be forced to pay maternity leave salaries. However if you look at the programs in place all around the world you can see that this is not mandatory. There are programs ranging from full state paid, payment divided between the state and the employer or full employer paid. Any of these are acceptable. What is not acceptable is to continue to force American mothers to choose between bonding with their child and making money to cover the needs of their families.
America stands almost alone without legislation for paid maternity leave. American mothers, under the Family and Medical Leave Act are allowed only 12 weeks of unpaid leave before returning to work. To make it worse, those who work for companies with fewer than 50 employees or have worked less than 1,250 hours in the past year are not covered under the Act and are entitled to no time off. While some companies have provided their own paid maternity leave policies these jobs are scarce. A 2008 report found that only 16% of companies with more than 100 workers provide 100% paid maternity leave for the legislated period. Women can not rely on the goodwill of their employers, legislation is sorely needed to ensure the rights of working mothers.
Almost every other country in the world, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Cuba and Iraq have paid maternity leave legislation of some sort. Most nations have laws providing for time off ranging from 14 to 96 weeks in a mixture of paid and unpaid time and varying levels of pay. In the Czech Republic mothers can take up to 4 years off, paid for by the state. Sweden provides 16 months, with the cost shared between the government and the employer at 80% of the the mothers salary. The UK laws provide for 39 weeks paid, by the employer with an additional 13 weeks unpaid. Canada provides 52 weeks, paid for by the government at 55% of your salary with an additional 35 weeks of parental leave to be shared with your partner, covered under our Employment Insurance program.
The benefits of maternity leave are vast for both the mother and child. Mothers without maternity leave or shorter periods are, not surprisingly, more likely to become depressed. Returning to work after childbirth makes breastfeeding, with all it's health benefits, all but impossible. Studies have shown that fewer than 12 weeks maternity leave have behavioral effects on the child in the long term. They have lower cognitive test scores, reach milestones later and exhibit behavioral problems as they age. As they reach school age lower tests scores are noted. There are even results being shown in new studies in the field of epigenetics that may prove that early social interaction influences the marks that effect serotonin levels which may lead to adult depression. Longer maternity leaves have been shown to decrease early childhood mortality rates due to better monitoring of the child's health or accident prevention. These benefits clearly demonstrate the the short and long term beneficial effects of longer maternity leaves for the betterment of society.
Many of you probably believe the government should not be forced to pay maternity leave salaries. However if you look at the programs in place all around the world you can see that this is not mandatory. There are programs ranging from full state paid, payment divided between the state and the employer or full employer paid. Any of these are acceptable. What is not acceptable is to continue to force American mothers to choose between bonding with their child and making money to cover the needs of their families.
(no subject)
Date: 26/6/11 20:33 (UTC)I don't get the logic that claims someone elses abortion a crime and its also a crime for society to help raise our own offspring together.
(no subject)
Date: 27/6/11 10:18 (UTC)There is big bucks in having people work on no or low fringe benefits, and very little thought gets given to long term payoffs.
In the UK, we would rather buy expensive foreign soccer players that work on raising home grown talent, and it's ruining the national game.
Corporate thinking is just as short term, just as damaging to the economy as the thinking of the soccer clubs is to our national game.
(no subject)
Date: 27/6/11 16:55 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 27/6/11 23:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/6/11 15:14 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/6/11 18:08 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/6/11 22:07 (UTC)See, you can twist it either way. The abortion dilemma doesn't have any solution that doesn't involve hurting /someone/.
If you don't mind my asking, though, what does this have to do with the argument over maternity leave? I think that's the part that's confusing me about the comment you made earlier.
(no subject)
Date: 29/6/11 00:01 (UTC)what does this have to do with the argument over maternity leave?
Its greatly beneficial to a society to enable a mother to be with her child. It's critical to the healthy development of a child to constantly be with its mother especially during the earliest developmental stages for a variety of reasons. This is true of all mammals.
One would think that someone concerned about the fate of aborted fetus would be at least as concerned about the fate of babies once they are born.
One would think that someone would would advocate using the power of the government to make abortion a criminal act would also at the least advocate using the power of the government to enable the best nurturing of offspring. Can you explain why not?
This is one of the logical disconnects that leads people to suspect that anti-abortion people are more about controlling women than about protecting babies. They only care for the first nine months, once the baby is born, forget it, you're on your own.
(no subject)
Date: 29/6/11 14:14 (UTC)Do you really want to have that argument here?
"One would think that someone concerned about the fate of aborted fetus would be at least as concerned about the fate of babies once they are born."
Would you like to explain where you got the idea that I'm somehow not concerned...?
(no subject)
Date: 29/6/11 17:42 (UTC)If you do. I'm up for it.
Would you like to explain where you got the idea that I'm somehow not concerned...?
Because you're concerned about how "fair" it is to pay for a womans maternity leave:
"is it really fair to ask for all that time to be paid for?"
How would she survive otherwise?
I'm not sure where I stand tbh.
Since you are anti-abortion for the sake of the child, the consistent stance would be to help the mother and her child via paid maternity leave.
If you are willing to use the power of the government to prevent her from aborting, then why not be concerned about how well that child is raised?
And what if you have a stay-at-home dad? Should the mother still get time off? Should that time be paid?"
I believe both parents should get paid time off leave. I also believe a woman should have access to abortion if she so chooses.
I'm more about quality than quantity.
(no subject)
Date: 29/6/11 19:29 (UTC)Maybe we should wait for a more appropriate forum. That isn't what this post is about.
'"is it really fair to ask for all that time to be paid for?"'
I was asking in a sense of asking if it was fair to force other people to pay for it. And it's also a huge burden on employers to give someone lots of money to do nothing. I'm not trying to be all "Screw you mothers you can just go diaf" but there's more than one party involved here.
"the consistent stance would be to help the mother and her child via paid maternity leave."
That's kind of a stretch, to be honest. The two are different things. One refers to the active and purposeful ending of a human life; the other refers to a debate on whether an outside party should be responsible for supporting a child that isn't theirs.
Once again, I'm not actively against maternity leave; I see it as a bit of a moral conundrum, like many other issues we are facing (including abortion).
(no subject)
Date: 29/6/11 19:48 (UTC)Probably wise. Fair enough.
I was asking in a sense of asking if it was fair to force other people to pay for it.
Yeah. People make the same argument about schools too. Why should single people pay for it. I think we need to recognize a common good and fund it.
And it's also a huge burden on employers to give someone lots of money to do nothing.
Its not to do nothing. Its to ensure a healthy upbringing.
The employer should not carry all the burden, the government should help. They do this in Sweden well enough.
That's kind of a stretch, to be honest. The two are different things. One refers to the active and purposeful ending of a human life; the other refers to a debate on whether an outside party should be responsible for supporting a child that isn't theirs.
You will use the power of the state to force a woman to give birth. Yet, once that child is born, you hesitate to use the power of the state to compel society to help raise the child?
I really don't understand that logic. Seems to me you would want both.
(no subject)
Date: 29/6/11 21:35 (UTC)Here's where we're going to have to agree to disagree, because in general I believe the autonomy of the individual trumps the idea of the "common good". It's nearly impossible to agree on a common good that everyone would be happy to fund, and it will always involve taking a person's money away from them against their will and giving it to someone else, when it may or may not benefit that first person.
"You will use the power of the state to force a woman to give birth. Yet, once that child is born, you hesitate to use the power of the state to compel society to help raise the child?"
The point of being pro-life is recognizing the value of the child (born or unborn) and believing it is wrong to actively kill it. Maybe (hopefully) one day science will make it possible to do this without ever having to actually give birth to the child, so the moral conundrum of woman's body v. child's life will become obsolete, because I definitely feel that conflict.
It's a different topic than maternity leave, though. Like I said above, it falls under the category of forcing people to contribute financially to a "common good"; abortion had nothing to do with pooling money that way. I admit that the morality of both of these situations is difficult, but I don't feel the need to compare them when I can state my views on them and debate them one at a time.