Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-united-states-lacks-what-both-parties-agree-on-paid-family-leave/5023922/
The United States is the only large, industrialized nation to not mandate paid family leave. We’re talking maternity and paternity leave here. In fact, of the 193 countries that make up the United Nations, 185 have national laws and the United States is not one of them. This elite group with no paid family leave includes Suriname, Papua New Guinea, some small South Pacific island nations — oh, and us.
This is a problem.
Lack of paid family leave means mothers rush back to work weeks after giving birth, if they’re lucky enough to be able to pull together enough time off to remain home at all. And fathers do the same, both parents juggling jobs and bonding with their child.
This slashes the critical bonding time parents need with their child. It also doesn’t allow the mother proper time for healing after giving birth, despite a study in the journal PLoS Medicine that associated a 13 percent drop in infant mortality for every additional month of maternity leave allowed. Every month. Let that sink in.
Women who do not receive paid leave after having a child often are forced to leave the workforce, at least temporarily, which ...