A Program of Paid Parental Leave in the U.S., Essay Example

Outline

I. Introduction

i. The advent of parental leave programs

ii. The FMLA

II. Overview of Benefits to Mothers and Children

i. Health and Medical Benefits

ii. Economic Benefits

III. Sociological and Economic Consequences

i. Employment and Wage Disparities

ii. Health of Mothers and Children

IV: The Quebec Model

i. A possible model for a successful parental leave program

V. Conclusion

Annotated Bibliography

Brough, Paula; O’Driscoll, Michael; Biggs, Amanda.  Parental leave and work?family balance among employed parents following childbirth: An exploratory investigation in Australia and New Zealand. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online. 19 Apr 2010.

The authors examine how families that did and did not have access to parental leave fared in the period following the birth of a child. The paper concludes that those families with parental leave programs fared better overall than those without such programs.

Bygren, Magnus; Duvander, Anne-Zofie. Parents’ Workplace Situation and Fathers’ Parental Leave Use. Journal of Marriage and Family. 68(2). May 2006. 363-372.

An examination of how fathers tend to use parental leave in terms of the family’s workplace situation. Fathers tend to shorten leave as compared to mothers when such leave for both is unpaid, indicating the continued existence of gender disparities where access to leave is concerned.

Garret, Patricia; Wenk, Deeann; Lubeck, Sally. Working Around Childbirth: Comparative and Empirical Perspectives on Parental-Leave Policy. Child Welfare; Sep/Oct90, Vol. 69 Issue 5, p401-413

An examination of the practical implications of the FMLA as it pertains to working mothers. The authors conclude that despite the advances set forth by the FMLA, working mothers still suffer consequences in the workplace after taking maternity leave.

Gheuas, Anca; Robeyns, Ingrid. Equality-Promoting Parental Leave. Journal of Social Philosophy. Volume 42, Issue 2, Summer 2011. 173–191.

An examination of gender roles and gender differences where parental leave is concerned. Parental leave is most often taken by mothers in the U.S., which can lead to workplace inequality and earning imbalances.

Hofferth, Sandra L.; Curtin, Sally C. Parental Leave Statutes and Maternal Return to Work After Childbirth in the United States. Work and Occupations 2006 33: 73.

Explores the statistical information about how the Family Medical Leave Act has affected U.S. mothers who return to work after childbirth. Offered insight into how the availability or absence of leave options for mothers affects them and their offspring as well as the larger implkications for the workplace and society.

McGovern, Patricia et al. The Determinants of Time off Work after Childbirth. Journal of Health, Politics, Policy and Law. 25(3). 2000. 527-564.

Overall family income and the availability of paid leave policies are described by the authors as being among the primary determinants of how long a period of time mothers will take after childbirth. With parental leave determined by the authors to be a significant contributor to positive outcomes for families, they conclude that the lack of paid parental leave has a potentially deleterious effect on the poorest families.

Morrone, Michelle Henault; Matsuyama, Yumi. Japan’s Parental Leave Policy. Childhood Education, suppl. international focus issue 201086. 6 (2010): 371-375.

A discussion about parental leave policies in Japan. The authors assert that the workplace culture in Japan often pressures fathers to forego taking parental leave, a situation that has implications for the U.S. perspective on parental leave for fathers.

Ondrich, Jan; Spiess, C. Katharina; Yang, Qing. Barefoot and in a German Kitchen: Federal Parental Leave and Benefit Policy and the Return to Work after Childbirth in Germany. Journal of Population Economics. Vol. 9, No. 3. Aug., 1996. 247-266

In the early 1990s parental leave plans in Germany roughly paralleled those set forth in the FMLA. Statistical evidence from Germany in this time period indicates that German mothers faced similar problems in the workplace after returning to work.

Pronzato, Chiara Daniela. Return to work after childbirth: does parental leave matter in Europe? Review of Economics of the Household 7. 4.Dec 2009. 341-360

An examination of parental-leave policies in different European nations. The ability to contrast and compare different polices offers the chance for comparison with U.S. polices.

Ruhm, Christopher J. Parental leave and child health. Journal of Health Economics.Volume 19, Issue 6, November 2000, Pages 931–960

An examination of the relationship between parental leave and pediatric health. Strong correlations between the availability of parental leave and positive pediatric health is demonstrated, offering a possible means by which U.S. health-care costs for children could be lowered.

Sallee, Margaret W. A Feminist Perspective on Parental Leave Policies.  Innovative Higher Education. 32(4). 2007. 181-194.

This discussion applies several feminist theories to the matter of parental leave. Considering the rate at which women have entered the U.S. workplace over the last several decades, it may be helpful to incorporate such a perspective in crafting effective leave policies both for women and for men.

Tremblay, Diane-Gabrielle; Genin, Émilie. Parental Leave: An Important Employee Right,

But an Organizational Challenge. Journal of Employee Rights and Responsibilities. 2011. 249-268.

This paper explores the parental leave program instituted in Quebec in 2006. This program affords benefits to parents that are unique in North America; as such, it may serve as a model program on which other programs could be based.

The issue of parental leave to care for newborns is one that has changed drastically, in terms of public perception and legislative policy, over the past several decades. A combination of sociological, political, and economic factors have influenced these perceptions and policies; all are related to the increasing numbers of women entering the workplace since the middle of the 20^th century. The very nature of parental leave itself has changed; where once the concept might have been more typically labeled “maternity leave,” contemporary fathers are, if not as likely, at least more likely than in decades prior to take leave to care for a newborn. While a preponderance of studies have demonstrated beneficial links between parental leave and positive outcomes for children, the reality is that, for a variety of reasons, “parental leave” more often than not translates as “maternity leave,” and despite legislative efforts such as the FMLA, mothers who take parental leave often pay a price in terms of their future employment opportunities and wage earnings. The best way to ameliorate these problems for women is to enact a standardized paid parental leave act that ensures equal opportunity and access for both parents.

Any effort to understand both the benefits and the potential negative consequences of parental leave programs –whether paid or unpaid- must take into account a variety of factors. In instances where only one parent takes leave, for example, it is typically the mother who does so. This trend exists for many reasons, both sociological and economic; while women now make up roughly 60% of the workforce (Hofferth, Curtin; p74), they still generally earn less than men (Sallee, p183). Mothers also face recovery times from childbirth that are not applicable to men, and many mothers choose to breastfeed in the first weeks, months, or even years after childbirth (Gheaus, Robeyns, p175).

While numerous studies have shown that parental leave for mothers can offer benefits to children and families, these findings do not necessarily tell the entire story. Even in cases where mothers have access to parental leave that is intended to keep their positions open, some return to work to find that a technically comparable but less adequate position is all that is available (Pronzato, p342). Even when women are able to return to the same position they left, many find that their earning power is compromised, or opportunities for advancement more limited, as compared to male or female co-workers who had not taken comparable leaves (McGovern, p547).

With these and other sometimes-contradictory or counterintuitive factors in mind, it may be beyond the scope of this paper to fully explore all of the socio-economic and other factors that ultimately determine how beneficial parental leave programs are to the well-being of children and their parents. Overall, however, a case can be made that the benefits of such programs would seem to outweigh the downsides, at least when such programs can be implemented in as fair and equal a manner as possible. To reach a cursory understanding of the various factors, equities, and inequities in parental leave programs, some comparisons will be made and contrasts drawn between and among the programs available in different regions of the world.

A move towards offering parental leave programs began in the 20^th century, as the rise of industrialization saw increasingly large numbers of women entering the workplace (Ondrich, et al; p248). By the 1990s, most industrialized nations offered at least some amount of maternity leave –typically 2-3 months or longer- though the matter of whether such leave was paid or unpaid varied from region to region and among socio-economic levels (Ruhm, p931-960). While the availability of paid maternity leave in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s was fairly limited, Soviet Bloc nations generally covered 12 weeks of maternity leave universally (Garrett et al, p403). It may be questionable to compare leave in the former Soviet Union to leave –whether paid or unpaid- in the U.S. during the same time period, but from a sociological standpoint, such leave was considered the right of every mother in the Soviet Union, while it was, to a degree, a more negotiable benefit in the U.S.

The move towards paid leave in Western Europe began several decades ago, and most European nations now guarantee some form of paid parental leave for mothers; the length of such leaves and the amount of reimbursed pay still fluctuate significantly from one country to another, however (Ruhm, p931-960). In the U.S., the availability of maternity leave was typically the purview of the employer prior to the 1993 FMLA, with wide variety of factors acting as determinants of such availability (McGovern, p528). Mothers who, for example, might be in a position to return to work quickly would often be more likely to find their positions still available; conversely, some mothers in stronger negotiating positions might have been able to reach agreements in advance about the length of future maternity leaves (Hofferth, Curtin, p75). Even after the enactment of the FMLA, the amount of leave, if any, that mothers take still varies greatly, and for a number of reasons. In many cases women find it necessary to weigh considerations about the child’s health against considerations about their own, or their family’s, earning and employment opportunities.

Just as it did in the U.S., the trend towards allowing for greater access to parental leave has increased in Western Europe over the last several decades (Ondrich et al, p248). Unlike the U.S., however, the trend in Western European nations has been towards guaranteeing paid parental leave to qualified parents; as such, it is difficult to make direct comparisons about the benefits of leave in those European nations to those found in the U.S., as the financial and economic considerations of parents with paid and unpaid leave will, by their nature, differ significantly. Overall, however, strong correlations between pediatric health and parental leave have been seen in Europe as well as in the U.S. (Ruhm, p931-960).

The most obvious effect of parental leave on a child’s health is the amount of time a parent or parents can spend with that child in the first weeks and months of life. A strong positive relationship has been shown between breastfeeding and pediatric health; breastfeeding mothers who have access to parental leave may find themselves able to breastfeed more frequently and for longer periods of time (Ruhm, p931-960). Parents with access to leave may also be able to devote more time to rest, and to their own health, than parents who return to work immediately after a child is born. The statistics in Western Europe show that children of parents who are afforded parental leave display markedly lower rates of infant- and early-childhood mortality (Ruhm, p931-960).

Being able to spend time with children, or to breastfeed, are not the only determinants of childhood health, of course. The other primary factors are the parent’s genetic information and the level of household income (Ruhm, p931-960). While genetic factors can be complicated by the other two primary factors, they are, for the purposes of this discussion, not applicable. Economics, however, play a significant role not just in pediatric health, but in the overall well-being of the entire family.

Women who have access to parental leave do not always take such leave, and when they do, not all women will take the same amount of leave. Though the FMLA guarantees a 12-week leave for the birth of a child to qualified parents, such leave is generally unpaid (Hofferth, Curtin; p74). For many mothers taking time from work for three months or longer is financially untenable; for those who cannot afford to be away from work for such a length of time it is necessary to find some form of child care while they work. Even those mothers for whom parental leave is economically feasible may feel pressured by their employers to return to work because they are needed there, or because they fear they may be passed over for advancement or raises in salary if they are away for too long (McGovern, p529).

For various reasons, these concerns are not generally faced by fathers. Although women make up more than half of the U.S. workforce, men still earn more, on average, than do women. From a sociological perspective, women are usually seen as the parent who should stay home with a newborn, while men are usually expected to remain in the workforce (Hofferth, Curtin, p78). The gender inequities associated with employment and earnings are reinforced when women are expected to bear the brunt of the negative consequences associated with parental leave; men, not being expected to take such leave, are able to maintain and improve their positions in the workplace, while women often lose their place in the line for advancement opportunities (Sallee, p182). Women may feel pressured to return to the workplace too quickly, a decision that can have negative consequences for her, her child, or both.

Opponents of parental leave programs could argue that the potential downsides of such programs are borne primarily by women, whether they feel pressure to return to work too quickly or they stay away from the workforce for so long that they are unable to keep pace with the career tracks of their coworkers. The very existence of parental leave programs muddies the waters a bit: some studies have found that women are more likely to enter the workforce if they know parental leave is available if they need it; conversely, some studies found that women delay entering the workforce to avoid disrupting a career even when parental leave policies exist (Pronzato, p341).

What undermines these and other arguments against parental leave policies is the very nature of the statistics and facts surrounding the current state of such policies in the U.S. While most industrialized nations have been moving towards ensuring some form of paid parental leave, the U.S. stands alone; its lack of a uniform, cohesive policy for parental leave is not a symptom of the problem, it is the cause. Nearly all of the arguments that could be made against the implementation of standards for paid parental leave are based on problems that exist because of the lack of such standards. The inequities in parental leave programs that place undue burdens on women, such as the possibility of missing out on career advancement opportunities, exist because the programs themselves are ill-conceived or poorly implemented.

In order to ensure that parental leave programs do not unduly burden women, they must not only be available to men, but the financial and economic constraints that often force men to forego taking such leave must be lifted, and the inequities that see women losing their place on the career track must be shifted such that men are no longer favored in that context. The province of Quebec provides an example of a new approach to parental leave, one that takes these factors into consideration; beginning in 2006 qualified employees are guaranteed paid paternity and maternity leave, with an additional 12 months of guaranteed parental leave that can be shared between parents (Tremblay, Genin, p249-250). Because it is too soon to truly measure the full impact of this parental leave program, it is impossible to determine whether Quebec’s solution to the question about parental leave is the best possible approach. What Quebec’s program does take into account however, is that parental leave is a complicated issue, and one that affects both mothers and fathers; as such, it was decided that it should be available to both equally.

The question of how to pay for paid parental leave programs in the U.S. is not an easy one to answer; any legislation that addresses the subject will have to consider the cost impact on private insurance, public-sector budgets, and the like. With the benefits of parental leave being fairly clear, however, there is little question that the positive aspects of parental leave outweigh the possible downsides. The majority of the potential downsides to parental leave, as a matter of fact, are in the way they affect the economic situations and prospects of mothers. Addressing those inequities is not just a social responsibility; it is also a means by which to improve the lives and health of children and families and the economic prospects of the entire nation.