The 100+ Year Fight for Paid Maternity Leave: We Need Victory Now

Paid Family and Medical Leave in the United States and Why It’s Crucial

https://doi.org/10.56927/878148

Minsoo Kwon

abstract

Every day, over ten-thousand babies are born in the United States.¹ As families navigate childbirth and its concomitant struggles of newborn care and maternal recovery, parents in the United States face a unique systemic flaw: the lack of federally mandated paid family leave. Despite the proven positive health benefits of federally-mandated paid family and medical leave, to this day, the United States still remains as the only wealthy country lacking such policy, leaving American parents with no choice but to spread themselves thin. As the health benefits of paid parental and family medical leave have been proven considerably, what steps has the United States taken towards federally mandated paid family and medical leave, and why have its strides failed to reach our desperately desired destination?

Article

In 1919, the International Labor Organization adopted the Maternity Protection Convention, which called for 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, free medical care during and after pregnancy, job guarantees upon return to work, and periodic breaks to nurse infant children. Throughout the ensuing 100+ years, activists have lobbied for the introduction of federal paid family and medical leave in the United States. Despite a century of such efforts, this country has failed to reach the standards of maternity protection put forth by the International Labor Organization. To this day, the United States remains as the only wealthy country lacking such policy. Victory is long overdue.

The lack of federally mandated paid family leave is astounding considering its positive effects on maternal health. Paid maternity leave has been shown to improve maternal health–shown by multiple measures of health, such as BMI, blood pressure, pain, and mental health–in both the short and long term.² The introduction of a paid maternity leave policy in Norway that provides four months of paid leave reduced the probability of maternal obesity by 39 percentage points and even increased health-promoting behaviors like exercise and not-smoking.³ Four months of paid leave were enough to effect positive change on maternal health, benefits that are American mothers are not afforded. Notably, these positive effects were larger for first-time and low-resource mothers who would have taken little unpaid leave in the absence of such reform.

While this finding allows us to remain hopeful about the positive effects of continued parental leave policies, it engenders concern in the context of the United States, where access is unequal across wage brackets and races: For example, hispanic workers have lower rates of both access and use to paid leave both paid-leave access and paid-leave use than their white non-hispanic counterparts.⁴ Low wage workers are less likely to have access to paid leave and tend to take unpaid leave at higher rates than other groups, a finding that implies significant health inequities as parental leave has considerable health benefits. In addition to these race and income stratifications, access to leave also varies based on employee part-time/full-time status. According to the American Time Use Survey, fewer than half of part-time workers in any wage quartile report that they can take paid family leave.⁵ Full-time workers in the bottom wage quartile and part-time workers in the top two wage quartiles have the same level of access to paid family leave, a finding of concern especially because women are more likely to work in part-time jobs.

Paid Family and Medical Leave is distinct from existing Family and Medical Leave policies.^{6, 7} Under the current policies, to be eligible and receive unpaid leave from a company under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, an employee must have been at a company (that employs 50 or more employees) for at least one year, during which at least 1250 hours must be fulfilled before requesting leave. Those who are eligible are permitted to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave in one year. Though Family and Medical Leave was enacted federally in 1993, after nearly a decade of efforts, the qualification requirements push many and most to the margins out of coverage and keep medical leave out of reach due to the unmanageable financial consequences of income loss.⁸

In the absence of a federally mandated paid family and medical leave, some United States employees are able to take paid leave through benefit plans provided by employers, or social insurance programs such as state mandated paid family medical leave offered by nine states and the District of Columbia.⁹ However, such scope of coverage is tragically narrow. Only 19% of U.S. employees have access to paid family leave through an employer, according to the National Compensation Survey produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Therein lies a critical distinction between access and utilization of paid leave. Even workers who have access to paid family and medical leave may choose not to “take-up” paid family and medical leave for a variety of reasons: a benefit amount that is significantly less than their normal earnings, fear of losing jobs, and the possibility of facing other penalties upon return.¹⁰ A federally mandated paid family and medical leave policy would solve this problem by shifting the pressure and blame of making a choice to that of the government. Therefore, a nationwide policy would also benefit those who already technically have access but do not feel comfortable “taking up” the option.

Policymakers have rekindled the discussion for policy reform. In October 2021, the Biden Administration originally pushed for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave as part of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending package. After negotiations whittled down the original twelve weeks to merely four, the act was dropped entirely, as moderate democrats took issue with the $3.5 trillion spending plan and looked for potential eliminations.¹¹ More recently, in President Biden’s March 2022 State of the Union address, he alluded to a new federal paid and family and medical leave policy, but once again, the timing of such action remains unclear.¹²

There have been bipartisan attempts towards incremental progress, though the timeline of fruition remains tragically abstract. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney reintroduced the New Parents Act, a voluntary option for paid parental leave by allowing new parents to use a portion of their Social Security after the birth or adoption of a child.¹³ This act offers families novel flexibility in usage, such as combining leaves and transferring to one parent. Under this act, many parents, even those with low incomes, would be able to finance three months of leave or longer. While this act would certainly be a step forward in the right direction, parents shouldn’t have to count on delayed retirement to protect their children and themselves with good health and healthcare.

While the Covid-19 pandemic invigorated interest in medical leave policies, such programs were temporary in nature and have since ceased. Even during such programs, two-thirds of low-wage workers had no access to paid sick days, yet another instance of actual implementation falling short of the volume of interest and dialogue.¹⁴

The battle for paid family leave in the United States is far more uphill than the data suggest. Our nation is lagging in not only access, but also uptake and perceived availability from the employee’s perspective: 7% of employee respondents in the American Time Use Survey report that they do not know if they would be able to take leave (paid and unpaid) in the event of the birth or adoption of a child. Research shows that paid leave policies would be particularly beneficial for groups who are currently the least likely to get such a benefit from their jobs under existing leave policies, or rather lack thereof. A nationwide paid family and medical leave has been long needed and overdue. Giving parents and families the necessary time to safeguard their health is a right that must be afforded to all. It is time to end the 100+ year struggle and federally mandate paid family and medical leave in the United States.

About the Author

Minsoo Kwon is an Associate Editor at HHPR, studying Neuroscience at Harvard University.

References

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