Paid Parental Leave In Society

Parental Leave in Society In many cases, couples wait until they reach a financially stable point in their lives with a reliable job for each partner before they make the decision to conceive a child. Experiencing the miracle of childbirth marks the beginning of a new chapter of a couple’s life, where new parents fall in love with the tiny addition to their family and take on enormous caregiving responsibilities. However, parents may not have enough time to balance a job and a newborn. To counter families’ time constraints, governments around the world allow mothers and fathers to take time off from their jobs in an unpaid absence called maternal and paternal leave, respectively. Countries offer paid maternal and/or paternal leave as well.
However, the United States only enforces laws that protect the mother’s employment while she recovers from the physical effects of giving birth.
United States mothers currently only receive 12 weeks of unpaid leave and fathers receive no leave. The United States needs to give paid leave to new parents and allow the parents to determine how to split the allotted leave time.
Paid parental leave helps strengthen the family unit and allows both parents to bond with their child. Through the American Academy of Political and Social Science, founded in 1889 and led by political economist Edmund James to promote progress in social sciences, Margaret O'Brien associates extended parental leave with reductions in infant mortality, especially after the fist month of care. Similarly, fathers who use at least 20 percent of all potential leave days tend to show more involvement in childcare and family matters. O’Brien also reported parents feel they greatly value the opportunity for nurturing and bonding that longer parental leave allows (O’Brien 205-206). In the long run, the government aims to provide optimal quality of life to the best of its ability for its citizens. Providing the chance for parents to spend quality
time with their infants helps to relieve stress in the parents and facilitates an overall happier state of mind for parents and children alike. The journal Social Service Review, a publication by the University of Chicago Press devoted to research on social welfare policy, publishes Maureen Baker’s suggestion that unpaid maternity leave only emphasizes the physical healing of the mother’s body after the demanding task of giving birth, whereas paid parental leave for both genders emphasizes loving care for the infant and creating a strong sense of family (Baker 54). Though a woman only needs six weeks for her body to fully recover from childbirth, extra time to focus on her newborn facilitates emotional healing alongside physical healing (Trzcinski, Alpert
536). In order for the United States government to fully care for its citizens, policymakers must consider not only the people’s physical needs, but their emotional needs as well. Implementing policies with extended paid leave helps give parents time to create important emotional connections with their children and ease the parents’ minds as they learn vital parenting skills.
In many cultures, the responsibility to take care of the children often falls on the mother. By including paid paternal leave in the childcare system, the government contributes to removing gender roles by encouraging fathers to take part in raising their children while mothers work to support the family. Developing countries continue to see women strictly as caregivers of the children and family, and men as breadwinners and leaders of the house, with a growing number of people aspiring to eliminate the gender roles. Syeda Jesmin and Rudy Ray Seward, authors for the Journal of Comparative Family Studies that gathers peer-reviewed articles from cultures and social science researchers around the world in an effort to study families, write that mothers worldwide often shape the father’s role in childcare. As the father’s skills and confidence in childcare grows, he follows the mother’s lead. In addition, the socioeconomic background and working arrangements, such as number of hours per week each parent works, factor into a father’s decision of using his paternal leave. Jesmin and Seward show the more often mothers work outside the home, the more often fathers spend caring for their children ( Jesmin, Seward 96-97). Magnus Bygren and Ann-Zofie Duvander, associate professors in sociology at Stockholm University, discover men prefer to take paternal leave if their work situation allows them to do so at a relatively low cost, and other men in the same workplace take leave as well (Bygren, Duyander 363). Overall, parents weigh the option of taking parental leave with great care. A parent who supplies the sole supporting income of the family feels reluctant to take time off during an already emotionally and financially vulnerable time. Increasing paid parental leave for both parents alleviates the stress to provide for the family.
Other countries such as Sweden and New Zealand already successfully use both paid maternal and paternal leave.
Marjorie E. Starrels, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, describes Sweden as the country with the most generous and progressive parental leave policies in the world. The Swedish government gives couples up to 480 days of calendar leave (reserving two months for the father, three for the mother, and the rest for division between both parents), paid for by social security. For the first 390 days the mother receives 80% compensation, and for all days afterwards she receives a flat rate (Starrels 946-947). In doing so, Sweden attempts to bring more women to the work force, raise the birth rate, and lift gender stereotypes. The United States suffers from low birth rates as well. Fertility rates (number of births per 1,000 women ages 15-44) in the U.S. during 2016 reached a record low – only around 60 births per 1,000 women (Park). An increase in paid parental leave would help correct the low fertility rates and encourage couples to raise more children, and promote stable population growth. In the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, started in 1962 to promote historical awareness in scholarly articles, Katherine Ravenswood and Ann-Marie Kennedy write about the history and progression of New Zealand’s parental leave policies. New Zealand offers 38 weeks of paid leave, funded by the government (Ravenswood, Kennedy
198). Though New Zealand does not offer as much parental leave as Sweden, the country still shows more success in uniting families and bringing parents together to raise a child than the United States.
A change in the current United States parental leave policy to one that gives paid leave to both parents, especially when the parents may divide the time amongst themselves, effectively helps the parent and child begin lifelong relationships, begin to deconstruct the cultural norms for fathers and encourage them to take part in the child-rearing process, and follows in the footsteps of other developed countries that successfully use paid parental leave in their childcare system today. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest human resource professional society that includes over 165 countries, President-elect Donald Trump plans to push for six weeks of paid maternal leave for women after childbirth (Petrillo). Funds for extended paid leave could possibly come from increased taxes, cuts in the salaries of government officials, or issue mandates to companies stating they must cover the cost of paternal leave independently. A small step in the right direction, Trump’s plan brings families slightly closer together, allowing the mother to receive income to support her newborn while she recovers and cares for her infant – a feature the United States does not have currently. In the future, the government may fully have the ability to support families while they bear witness to the beauty of life.