Persuasive Essay On Maternity Leave

The United States of America is the finest and most progressive nation in the world...right? Sadly, on the topic of maternity leave, that is not the case. Three countries out of the one hundred and eighty five on this planet do not guarantee paid maternity leave; the U.S. being one of them (#8). The lack of paid maternity leave in the U.S. damages the health of new mothers and their families, and discourages women from being a part of the workforce. The U.S. needs to raise their standards to those of many other countries and put regulations in place in order to give new and expectant mothers paid maternity leave. ‘There is no need for maternity leave to be paid, mothers are lucky that they get it at all’. This is an astonishingly inaccurate

However, because of the success of other countries, we can see that that is simply not true. Many countries have their maternity leave benefits conveniently journaled for reference and those journals come in handy for arguing one’s point as they are nothing but fact. San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino, has a journal like this. San Marino’s maternity benefit consists of five months of fully paid leave, a year of potential thirty percent paid leave or (mother’s choice) a year in which the mother can take up to two hours of leave a day until the child is one year old (#7). Thirty four countries are a part of the OECD, or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the U.S. is one of them. Across OECD countries, there is an average of seventeen weeks of paid maternity leave around childbirth. Most OECD countries offer paid maternity leave that lasts at least three months. In some countries, however, a mother is entitled to over six months of paid maternity leave. The UK, for example, offers nine months of paid leave. Taking into account public holidays, the workers in many OECD countries are annually entitled to at least thirty to thirty five days of fully paid leave. The U.S. is the only country belonging to OECD that does not have a minimum requirement of paid leave (#2). Even in this small community of countries, we have the

While everything might be fine for the mother, there is a high probability that it will not be for the newborn child. A mother’s stress can have very high impacts on the development of her child. Studies show that mothers who experience high levels of stress and depression have a negative impact on the overall health and wellness of their families (#5). The stress that the lack of maternity leave causes can be extremely harmful to mothers and therefore extremely harmful the their children. “Numerous studies show that clinical depression in mothers as well as self-reported depressive symptoms, anxiety, and psychological distress, are important risk factors for adverse emotional and cognitive outcomes in their children, particularly during the first few years of life,” (qtd. In #5). Maternity leave is a time used for mothers to transition into the parental role. This time could even make it easier to transition back into the workplace because the new mothers will be happier and healthier doing