Maternity Leave Benefits

The United States is one of only three countries remaining that do not guarantee paid maternity leave to mothers. This becomes a problem not only for new mothers, but also creates a potentially stressful environment for both the newborn and the family. Unsubstantial and unpaid parental leave in the United States contributes to the gender pay gap, is damaging to new mothers, and contributes to the drop in birth rates amongst women in high paid positions.

Many new families and especially families with new additions need the income that the mother would potentially provide. In the United States, “women’s earnings have become an increasingly significant share of total household earnings: currently, women are breadwinners or co-breadwinners
This is due to many things, but I believe that unpaid and unsubstantial maternity leave accounts for a lot of it. A document titled, The Economics of Paid and Unpaid leave stated, “In 2013, 56 percent of single mothers with children younger than 3, and 65 percent of all single mothers, had a job. Balancing these two jobs – work for her employer and work for her family – often requires the type of flexibility that leave offers.” As women are starting to seek more prestigious and higher paying jobs and careers many of them have become scared of starting a family because of the risk of loosing their job or not receiving the opportunity they worked so hard to receive. The choice to have a family could possibly mean the end of a career, and especially without paid maternity leave many women who do start a family are forced to take off and use their few sick and vacation days. Since the rise of single parent households, “The challenges of juggling work and family are particularly acute... these types of households become more prevalent as marriage rates have fallen, single mothers today are more likely to be working relative to twenty years earlier.” As the rate of working mothers and working single mothers increased the birth rate has went drastically down. Andrew J. Cherlin, a family demographer at Johns Hopkins University said that, “American women’s rates of childlessness, he said, will
Although some companies do offer paid maternity leave, many companies to not. And many also prefer to hire men, because men come without the added liability that an expecting mother might provide. Countries that do offer paid maternity leave usually have a system that allows for easy replacements providing that a woman may give birth, but here it isn’t that simple. The issue is that many higher paying jobs look for people who can, over a long period of time, succeed within their company. This forces many young women to seek out jobs that aren’t as high paying if they have a vision of having a family in the future. This contributes to the wage gap between men and women because many companies hire men for the long-term stability and possibly choosing them over a higher qualified woman because of a pregnancy and the added expense it could cause.

Overall the decision by the United States to make paid maternity leave a necessity would help to work against the gender pay gap, prevent damage to new mothers, and the drop in birth rates amongst women in high paid positions. Along with these reasons are the moral reasons that come along with it and that we are one of only three other countries that do not protect maternal rights. Paid maternity leave is a necessity and should be considered an essential part of hiring any