The Case for Paid Family Leave

Only two countries in the advanced world provide no guarantee for paid leave from work to care for a newborn child. Last spring one of the two, Australia, gave up that dubious distinction by establishing paid family leave starting in 2011. I wasn't surprised when this didn't make the news here in the United States—we're now the only wealthy country without such a policy.

But we did take one small step recently: on June 4th, the House of Representatives passed a paid family leave bill for federal employees, the nation's single largest workforce. The House actually passed a similar bill last year only to have it killed in the Senate— bringing the matter back again signals a growing struggle.In that light, the Australian case is not as remote as it may seem. When Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was elected from the Labor Party in 2007 (Australian Labor is like our liberal Democrats), he campaigned on the promise of defending families. But he wasn't simply campaigning for more social benefits from government: instead, he challenged the opposing Liberal Party (Australia's version of our Republicans) on their own terrain: the culture war. He described their culture war, which like ours has long been focused on "family values," as a complete fraud. The more the conservatives talked about family, Rudd forcefully declared, the less they did to protect the family from what is truly threatening its vitality and cohesion, namely, "corrosive" market forces and an unbalanced economic power structure extracting more and more labor from families in return for lower wages and benefits and less security. So in some sense Rudd ran against the conservatives from the right, as the protector of families against destructive forces. But he did so in the terms of government responsibility, the traditional standpoint of the left. If the United States is to follow Australia out of the family-policy void, this kind of left-right dynamic may be important in a similar way.

While the United States has been a leader on equal opportunity in the work place, a 2007 McGill University study found that we are far behind in terms of supporting parents and balancing work and family. In fact, says author Jody Heymann, America ranks "among the worst." In the study of 173 countries, we stood with Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea as the only countries providing no paid maternity leave. Of the 169 countries that guarantee paid maternity leave, 98 of them provide 14 or more weeks. Among wealthy countries—except ours—parents are entitled to as much as 47 weeks of paid family leave.

To get an idea of how much other countries invest in family leave, consider the comparatively ungenerous Australian policy: eligible working parents receive payments equal to the federal minimum wage, approximately $543 weekly, for a maximum of eighteen weeks of leave. Under another Australian policy passed earlier, every birth or adoption of a child entitles the parent or parents to a "baby bonus" of approximately $5,000 per child plus other benefits.

Or consider France, where parents are entitled to a veritable cornucopia of financial benefits, starting with universal "family allowances" that begin with the second child—$164 monthly for two children and $375 monthly if there are three children. In addition, there are means-tested subsidies for child care, including a birth/adoption grant of $1,200; a "basic" monthly child-care allowance of $236 during the first three years, complimented by further subsidies for paid professional child care until a child's sixth birthday; or a family leave benefit of $731 monthly if one parent leaves work to provide home care (and does not take the "basic" child care benefit).

Such policies sometimes have different social purposes. Policies like the Australian baby bonus are termed "familism," as they are clearly designed to increase the number of children. In contrast, parental leave policies are designed to create a better "work-family balance," actually helping working mothers stay attached to the workplace and remain productive contributors to the economy. Familist, or "natalist" policies, as they are sometimes described, have a long legacy in Europe, particularly in countries with a strong Catholic heritage. But as more women have entered the workforce in recent decades, family policy is increasingly part of a broader discussion about the link between family responsibilities and women's economic status and productivity. Some would argue that the lack of sufficient support for family responsibilities is undermining the economy by weakening women's ties to employment and limiting their opportunities for advancement. As women contribute more and more to household buying power (44 percent of earnings in dual-income households) and increasingly predominate in high-growth fields such as education and health care, paid parental leave is not just a social benefit but an essential support system for national productivity.