Paid Parental Leave

Paid Parental Leave: The Next Stage in the Worker’s Rights Movement

It almost goes without saying that the free market economy in the U.S. is little concerned with the wellbeing of the middle class employees upon whom it depends. For instance, the nation trails the rest of the developed world in terms of career leave for the parents of newborn children (Dustmann & Schonberg 191). While the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows both parents of a newborn up to twelve weeks away from work, nothing in the law stipulates that either mothers or fathers are to be compensated during their time off (Dustmann & Schonberg 191). For this reason, parents are often unable to spend an adequate amount of time with their infants before placing them

into daycare and then hurrying back to work. Yet this is hardly a sustainable solution for either families or employers. For this reason, a new policy needs to be enacted, one in which mothers and fathers are given generous (at least twelve weeks) of paid paternity or maternity leave.
There are a variety of reasons why paid time off is so important for both families and employers. Families, for instance, need the downtime to recover from the ordeal of delivery, and fathers are just as integral to this process as mothers are. Employers, on the other hand, should provide paid leave not necessarily because it is the proper thing to do, but because it makes solid business sense. The best way to retain employees and avoid attrition and turnover is to make them feel valued as people. Finally, American society itself needs to identify ways of better supporting the family unit as well. As economic demands place continuous pressure on parents, the nation’s birth rate continues to slip towards negative territory, making it increasingly unlikely that there will be a sufficiently sizable workforce in the very near future (Sanburn). In short, supporting the family structure is necessary for increasing the nation’s birthrate.
The arrival of a newborn creates the most immediate need within the family, however, often the most pressing issue is the mother’s recovery following her pregnancy. For instance, nearly a third of all women now give birth via cesarean section, a major procedure requiring several weeks on average to heal (Elliot-Carter & Harper 190). During this period, the mother is supposed to remain largely immobile in order to prevent the stitching from reopening and further damage setting in. Yet even when the delivery is a natural one, mothers still require downtime to recuperate from delivery. Often, new mothers are sore, fatigued, and generally weakened from the nine-month-long ordeal that is pregnancy. A return to full health, therefore, requires that the mother have sufficient time to rest and bond with her new baby before returning to work (Elliot-Carter & Harper 190).
Parental leave is also important for the healthy development of the infant as well.

Often, newborns arrive with health issues that require the close attention of one or both parents. Some examples of these include jaundice, abnormal blood sugar, distended bowels, coughing, and respiratory distress (American Academy of Pediatrics). In most cases, these problems go away on their own, but only if there is someone available to provide the infant with the quality care it needs. For babies born with more severe conditions, however, parental attentiveness is even more of a necessity. However, quality nurturing is impossible when both mother and father are unable to take an extended leave for lack of an

income.
If mothers need time off to recuperate from delivery and to care for their newborns, then fathers need to be at home to provide much-needed assistance.

A mother recovering from a cesarean, for instance, needs to have someone at home to bring her meals, help care for the newborn, and assist her about the house and so forth (Elliot-Carter & Harper). The best person for this role is the child’s father, when appropriate. Time away from work not only allows the father to help care for the recovering mother and her newborn, but it also enables to bond with the infant during a critical stage of development. Unfortunately, most fathers in the U.S. take very little time away from work at all. This is because men often fear that too much downtime from work will reflect poorly upon their careers. (Ranson 741). Additionally, it is difficult for a father to give up a salary for three months when the child’s mother is also receiving no pay. Under those circumstances, debt and financial difficulties for the new family can add up fairly quickly, at just the time when the family needs financial resources more than

ever.
Families are not the only ones who benefit from generous maternity and paternity absences, however. Employers themselves stand to profit as well. This is because employees who are allowed to take time away from work without repercussion are more likely to remain with a company than those who fear reprisals or informal punitive actions, such as slow promotion or career stagnation (Ranson). It is easy to see, however, why managers would be reluctant to provide employees with paid maternity or paternity leave. After all, market imperatives place nearly every company under certain economic pressures, requiring them to maximize both monetary assets and productivity. Paying employees who are away from work for three months at a time cuts into both of those. Indeed, for every employer to provide parental leave to both parents, the national economy would have to sacrifice hundreds of billions of dollars every single year.
No one will deny that this is certainly a staggering economic burden. Even so, it is nonetheless a worthwhile burden. Most companies, however, are not likely to sign on to the idea of paid parental leave without an understanding of how they stand to benefit as well. Again, the matter is one of expenses and profitability. The cost of recruiting and training new employees varies by industries, but it is hardly ever inexpensive (Guilding et al. 231). This is because employees who leave an organization often take a considerable amount of professional knowledge with them, leaving the company in a temporary state of distress. Sometimes, the costs can be enormous, depending on the position and function of the employee involved. Accounts may be lost, profitability slide, and operations upended (Guilding et al. 231). This is the real reason why it behooves companies to do their best to retain their employees, not to mention the fact that it is sometimes more costly to bring on new staff than it would have been to simply provide a former staff member with paid paternity or maternity leave.
Finally, it is also in society’s best interest to provide parents of newborns with paid time off as well. The decay of the family unit has long been a topic of debate among commentators, but young adults have begun delaying childbirth longer than ever before. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the high cost of childrearing is certainly among them (Sanburn). Indeed, as the baby boomer generation pushes its way towards mortality, the gap between the number of deaths and births is razor thin, the smallest it has been in four decades (Sanburn). In general terms, this decline means the national population is gradually shrinking. Without more support structures in place, the nation’s workforce will be sizably reduced over the coming decades. Consequently, there may not be enough workers on hand to sustain the economy, a situation that would leave many companies in the lurch.
There is a way back from all these problems, however. It involves returning the family to the center of the nation’s cultural life, rather than merely paying it lip service, the way most business and political leaders do now. There are numerous policy models that could easily be modeled, such as that of Quebec, which allows both mothers and fathers to take a year’s worth of paid leave, with the expense being covered by the Canadian government (Tremblay). The program is still new, but the early results show a reduction in family stressors and financial strain, as well as an increase in the province’s birth rate. While the U.S. is still a long way towards implementing such a generous leave plan, it nonetheless represents a worthwhile goal towards which the nation can strive. The key lies in recognizing the importance of the family to the national economy and then educating business leaders and policy makers on the need for greater family support structures. Admittedly, this is a goal that could take the nation decades to achieve. Even so, the time and effort expended would have been well worth it.