Should the United States require companies to provide paid maternity leave? Shou
ID: 470108 • Letter: S
Question
Should the United States require companies to provide paid maternity leave? Should it assist them to do so? What about paternity leave? (At leastr 500 word reply)
Please use the below case to answer this question:
“Swedish Daddies”
YEARS AGO, The FAMOUS ECONOMIST Paul Samuelson quipped that “women are just men with less money.” He was referring to the financially dependent position of women at that time, when they were unlikely to be employed outside the home and, if they were, were likely to earn substantially less than men. That has now changed for the better. Although women have yet to achieve full equity at the highest levels of business, they constitute nearly half the U.S. workforce, and their pay is not so very far behind that of men. Moreover, with the decline of manufacturing and the growing importance of the service sector in today’s economy, brain power matters more than brawn. Here women can compete as well as men, and they have proved their value to employers over and over again. In fact, they now outnumber men in professional and managerial positions. And with women continuing to graduate from college at a higher rate and in greater numbers than men, their future looks bright.124
But for many women there is one continuing source of frustration. They often feel forced to choose between mother- hood and a high-powered career. Jobs that offer the hours and flexibility that suit women with family responsibilities tend to pay less, while the most financially rewarding jobs frequently require brutal hours and total commitment to the job. And the higher you go, the rougher it gets. Not only must those who want to fight their way to the top of the corporate world work long, grueling hours, but they are also often expected to gain experience work- ing in different departments and divisions and even in different countries. That tends to rule out women with family commitments. As a result, women with children, especially single moth- ers, earn less on average than men do while childless women earn almost as much as men.
Over the years, some business writers have argued that we should simply accept this fact and that companies should distinguish between the career-primary woman and the career- and-family woman. Those in the first category put their careers first. They remain single or childless or, if they do have children, are satisfied to have others raise them. The automatic association of all women with babies is unfair to these women, argues Felice N. Schwartz, an organizer and advocate for working women. “The secret to dealing with such women,” she writes, “is to recognize them early, accept them, and clear artificial barriers from their path to the top.”
The majority of women, however, fall into the second category. They want to pursue genuine careers while participating actively in the rearing of their children. Most of them, Schwartz and others believe, are willing to trade some career growth and compensation for freedom from the constant pressure to work long hours and weekends. By forcing these women to choose between family and career, companies lose a valuable resource and a competitive advantage. Instead, firms must plan for and manage maternity, they must provide the flexibility to help career-and-family women be maximally productive, and they must take an active role in providing family support and in making high-quality, affordable child care available to all women. In other words, companies should provide women with the option of a comfortable but slower “mommy track.”
Although distinguishing between career-primary women and career-and-family women seems reasonable and humane, there’s rarely any mention of fathers or of shared parental responsibility for raising children. The mommy track idea also takes for granted the existing values, structures, and biases of a corporate world that is still male dominated. As authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English write, “Eventually it is the corpo- rate culture itself that needs to slow down to a human pace . . . [and end] workloads that are incompatible with family life.”
One country that is trying to push things in a new direction is Sweden. Whereas America stands almost alone in the world in not guaranteeing women paid maternity leave, Sweden pro- vides sixteen months paid leave per child, with the costs shared between the employer and the government. However—and this is what is novel—at least two of these months are reserved for fathers. No father is forced to take baby leave, but the leave is nontransferable so it’s “use it or lose it.” And more and more men are using it. In fact, more than eight in ten Swedish fathers now take advantage of parental leave. And some Swedish politi- cians are arguing that more months—perhaps half of them— should be exclusively for fathers. Germany has now followed Sweden’s lead. In 2007 it began guaranteeing fathers two months’ paternity leave. No country, however, has gone further toward parental equity than Iceland. It reserves three months of parental leave for the father and three months for the mother and allows parents to share an additional three months.
In the meantime, the paternity-leave law is helping to rede- fine masculinity in Sweden. Take game warden Mikael Karlson. A former soldier who owns a snowmobile, two hunting dogs, and five guns, he’s a man’s man. Cradling his two-month-old baby girl in his arms, he says he cannot imagine not taking parental leave. “Everyone does it.” Not only does his wife agree, but she says that he never looks more attractive to her than “when he is in the forest with his rifle over his shoulder and the baby on his back.” Some men admit that they were unsure of themselves at first—the cooking, cleaning, and sleepless nights—but that they adjusted to it and even liked it. One Swedish father calls it a “life-changing experience.”
“Many men no longer want to be identified just by their jobs,” says Bengt Westerberg, who as deputy prime minister helped to bring the law about. “Many women now expect their husbands to take at least some time off with the children.” “Now men can have it all—a successful career and being a responsible daddy,” adds Birgitta Ohlsson, another government minister. “It’s a new kind of manly. It’s more wholesome.” Some also think the paternity-leave law is the reason that the divorce rate in Sweden has declined in recent years.
There are, however, stories of companies’ discouraging men from taking long baby leaves, and managers admit that parental leave can be disruptive. Still, by and large Swedish business has adapted, and many companies find that a family-friendly work environment helps them attract talented employees. “Graduates used to look for big paychecks,” says one human resources manager. “Now they want work–life balance.”
Many men in the United States would like a better balance between work life and family life, too. But even when paternity leave is an option, men are reluctant to take it. One reason is the attitude of their colleagues and employers, who tend to believe that, for men, work should come first. And, indeed, a recent study has found that fathers who are active caregivers are seen as distracted and less dedicated and that they are more likely than are so-called traditional fathers to be teased and insulted at work, accused of being “wimpy” or “henpecked” by their wives.
Explanation / Answer
Should the United States require companies to provide paid maternity leave? Should it assist them to do so?
There is just one word to respond on this question is that Of course. Referring to the case study above, we have read that in Sweden the companies are pretty much open and paying off well the maternity leaves to working mothers, i.e. even close to 16 weeks, with the organization managing half of it and the rest has been taken care by the government. The point here comes as why does the government wants to get into it and the reason is because of the decline in the divorce cases in recent years, the results display numbers in front of everyone. And for the organization, it shows the loyalty and attachment that an employee would develop to support them in future in hour of need, whenever required.
We all know, that the issues like separation, divorce have been pretty common in the United States and the rates are getting increased almost every day basis. One of the major reasons are among the parents, the wives do not really get leaves and have to stay at home without work, the fathers on the other hand work and work and there is when the problem starts. As many other countries like Germany are following this sequence, then why not the United States, I think the US must implement this policy immediately by the employers who have married women working with them. And as the time is progressing, we all know that women are at par with men and are holding equal position as men, even they are marching ahead and the employers must respect their strength and provide them with paid maternity leaves with immediate effect.
The US must assist them in getting these leaves, if the big nationals like Sweden and Germany are following this, why can't the US follow the same and that would even turn out to be a better example for the world that the most open culture society and nation like the US also supports and respect women and provide them with benefits like these and help the nation grow along with considering all the citizens equal. The US can plan in a way, where the employers could allow the women to take leaves and pay based on their selection for each individual, and the rest of the share can be subsidized by the government as required during the maternity. It can also provide an option where if both the parents are working at the same place, then the father has to be available throughout and he cannot take any leave and serve all the time during the tenure. This will really help in easing the process and assure the assistance for the women employees who are working with the employer.
What about paternity leave?
This is another highly encouraged and increasing sort of flexibility for the parents. As we read in the case study, the Iceland is one such country that has really supported the paternity leave functioning and helped the parents to share the leave in halves. The fathers manage their work and as well their responsibility towards the family. The fathers have the right to take halve of the leaves and the mothers can serve for the other halve of the tenure. Even Sweden is planning to follow the same concept supporting and bringing equalities amongst the responsibilities and the work which parents are doing. The concept has changes in a completely different way; parenting by the father is considered as manly now a days, compared to the earlier days, when people did not like to stay at home for paternal leaves and considered their work first.
In the United States, there are still a number of people who think and follow that staying at home and taking paternal leaves is not considered as good and it would give an impression to their colleagues, as if the individual is not serious about the work and only focuses on supporting the family and stand behind his wife. However, this mentality is changing at a rapid rate with the improvement in literacy and professionalism in the people and I am sure if the US government makes it mandatory and announce to all the employers to enforce this practice of allowing paternity and maternity leaves at an equal insight for both parents will really help the parents, the baby and the nation in total.