I’m passing along this request for your comments (and possible participation in an interview) about paid and unpaid parental leave. I’m not involved in the project, but I think it’s vital to have LGBT voices heard in studies like these.
Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental human rights group, is interviewing parents (including LGBT parents) about their experiences with paid and unpaid maternity and paternity leave, and the impact on their families. The interviews will be used for a report (using pseudonyms, not actual names of interviewees) and, depending on the findings, for making recommendations on US law and policy.
Paid parental leave is considered a human right under several international treaties (not ratified by the US), and 177 countries now have laws guaranteeing paid parental leave. Only a few, including the United States, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Australia, do not have national laws on paid parental leave. Australia is about to fall out of these ranks by offering 18 paid weeks starting in 2011.
In the United States, the national Family and Medical Leave Act requires only unpaid leave. Only two states (California and New Jersey) currently offer paid parental leave, and a handful of others offer temporary disability insurance to mothers after childbirth. States that do offer such paid leave generally fund their programs through small payroll deductions, minimizing the impact on any particular business.
For the most part, it is up to employers to decide whether to offer this benefit. Some people are fortunate to work for generous employers, but the majority of US workers do not have paid parental leave benefits.
The lack of legally required paid parental leave with job protections hits low-income families the hardest. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2008, only 9 percent of civilian US workers had paid family (including parental) leave, and among the lowest-income workers, only 3 percent had such leave.
Research shows that paid parental leave can reduce infant mortality, improve immunization rates and health outcomes for mothers and babies, increase fathers’ participation in child care, improve breastfeeding initiation and duration, strengthen women’s connection to the workplace, avoid family poverty spells, and reduce businesses’ recruitment and training costs. Studies in the US have shown negative health and economic implications of the minimal paid parental leave benefits in this country.
Please post a comment about your experience!
When you gave birth or adopted your kids, did you take parental leave? Was it with or without pay? How long was your leave? How did this affect breastfeeding? Your health? Your baby’s health and access to immunizations? Your family’s finances? How did this affect your work and career? How else did the lack of paid parental leave affect you and your family? Do you know other parents who have had little or no paid parental leave?
And contact Janet Walsh at Human Rights Watch (walshj@hrw.org) if you are willing to share your experience in a short interview.
To learn more about Human Rights Watch, visit www.hrw.org.
I work for a very large state university in a very red state, which does not include domestic partnership in its definition of “family” for medical/sick leave purposes.
We have two children, one birthed by me, the other by my partner. We were both able to do second parent adoptions for our non-bio child, so each of our children has two legal parents. And we were both able to get FMLA approved after the birth of each child since we had pre-filed pending adoption paperwork.
Neither my employer nor my partner’s employer would pay for any leave time other than that for which we’d accrued (vacation/sick/comp). But here’s the tricky part: while I had accrued several weeks of sick time to use after the birth of our 2nd child (the one my partner gave birth to), I was told that I was ineligible to use that time to care for my partner, post c-section. I was only able to use it if the baby was ill, since the state recognized that the baby was my family (due to the pending adoption). I was ineligible to use it for care of my recovering partner! Because she isn’t family! Crazy!
All in all, we each had about 6 weeks accrued time to stay home with our children. For the first child, we supplemented that with a home equity loan which allowed me to stay home for 6 months, while paying a daycare to hold his space. For the 2nd child, we put him in the university’s daycare at 6 weeks. I do not think that there was really any appreciable difference in our bonding with either child, even though they were home with a parent for differing periods of time.
While big state’s definition of “family” was very aggravating, it just so happened that our older child actually got sick right after the 2nd child was born, so I was able to stay home with both kids and my partner…in good conscience.
Our immediate supervisors and even the big University’s Human Resources dept were very apologetic.
Our kids are now 7 and nearly 5, but the red state’s definition of family has not changed during these past several years.
thanks!
I live in Cda and am legally married to my wife. We adopted our daughter 5 weeks ago, and I’m staying home on a parental leave for a year. Legally, I am allowed to take a year of leave from my employer without losing my job (my employer is one of the three largest universities in Canada). I am considered to by on an unpaid leave from the employer (they continue to provide healthcare benefits which in Canada doesn’t amount to much as our essential services are free). It is interesting to note that had I given birth, I would have the first 16 weeks of the year of leave paid at 93% of my usual salary, but as we adopted, the entire leave is unpaid. So adopters lose 4 months salary as compared to birthers.
While my employer doesn’t pay a cent during my leave, I am extremely fortunate to receive federal government maternity payments (which is essentially employment insurance) at $400/week for 35 weeks. All Canadian parents are eligible for this benefit (up to $400/week depending on your usual salary) and it can be split any way you’d like between the two parents (eg, I could take 15 weeks off and receive the benefit, and then my partner could take the other 20 weeks and receive the benefit).
We are fortunate to have the federal govt parental benefit and probably would be dipping into savings to make it month to month were it not for this money. It will allow us to have our child home with one of her parents and keep our heads above water financially. I do think that we need to work toward benefits equity between adoptive and birthing parents. We are also incredibly lucky that our relationship is recognized as a marriage on both provincial and federal levels (accessing some services within the healthcare or education systems sometimes presents us with challenges of ignorant individuals – but that’s life).
I live in theUK and have had two children. With my first i got 6 months paid leave and with the second 9 months as there was a change of law between each child. i actually took 12 months with my second child, but the last three were unpaid. Our government pays around about £100 (not sure in $ sorry!) a week maternity pay. You can take from 29 weeks of pregnancy and currently 9 months although there are moves to make it 12 months. Employers have various schemes which can pay more. I am a teacher and out of the 9 months I got full pay for about 2 months and half pay for about 4 months. my friend who is a doctor got full pay for the full 9 months! i’m in a same sex partnership and my partner got to take 2 weeks ‘paternity’ leave, one of which was fully paid. It makes me realise how lucky we are here. i really valued my maternity time. it gave me a chance to spend quality time with my children, breastfeed, make friends and spend time with other parents and their children. i cannot imagine having to have returned to work quickly, especially with all the sleepless nights. I had children to spend time with them and I am very fortunate that our system supports me to do this. i do hope your government realises the need for well paid maternity leave soon. It is vital in givign parents and children a good start to their life together.
I am the bio-mom and took great, flexible return FMLA leave with my firstborn. Short term disability covered 8 weeks, I returned part-time at 9 weeks, and used the remaining FMLA coverage working part time for another several weeks.
My partner did not take FMLA after either child was born. I’d be happy to discuss the details, but not online.
I am from Canada. When our biological daughter was born in 2002, I took 15 months off of work in total. The first 17 weeks are are termed “maternity benefits” and the next 35 weeks are deemed “parental benefits”. Since I had been working prior to my leave, I was eligible for 52 weeks of Employment Insurance benefits during my leave. Those benefits are based on income earned/contributed and range from 55% of earned income up to a maximum of $413/week. In addition to that, I work for an employer that “topped up” that amount to 93% of my salary for 35weeks. The following 17 weeks were only on the $413/week EI benefits (which was harsh). The last three months of my leave, I took as a combination of vacation and accumulated lieu time at 100% of my salary.
I breastfed my daughter for 15 months, and, coincidentally she “weaned herself” right around the time I went back to work. By that time, though, it would not have been an issue because the breastfeeding was just supplemental to baby food at that point (she was exclusively breastfed until 6 months of age).
When we adopted a daughter a year and a half later, I took 35 weeks off on EI benefits topped up to 93% of my salary for 17 weeks (nice) and 18 weeks on just EI benefits (again, the harsh $413/week).
Although technically my partner and I could have split the the 35 week parental leave any way we wanted, it didn’t make financial sense in our particular circumstances for anyone but me to take it.