The bad news and then the good news. First, Washington's groundbreaking paid family leave program may be going down the toilet, done in by a bad economy and a governor who can make herself seem fiscally conservative by cutting a controversial new program, even though it's small change compared to the many-billion-dollar deficit the state faces and it's a social support families need now more than ever in these tough times. Officially, Governor Gregoire is just "suspending" work to set up the program, not killing it, but it will be hard work to get it going again once setup is halted. And you can forget about it and a lot of other good programs if her opponent, Republican Dino Rossi, unseats her in the upcoming election.
Now the good news, or maybe it's the good news-bad news: Although women have made up at least half of law school graduates and new hires at big firms for the last 20 years, there are few women partners at the top firms. That's largely because of the hostility of the profession to mothers: according to the Los Angeles Times, about 42 percent of women leave the profession because of a lack of family-friendly policies. But (here's the good news part), the LA Times also reports, firms are finally beginning to see the error of their ways, implementing mother-friendly policies, like longer maternity leave and part-time positions.
I've got to harsh my own buzz now: Until these policies are made mandatory for all companies across the country, they will remain the privileges of the lucky few.
Showing posts with label family leave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family leave. Show all posts
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Australia moves closer to paid family leave
The U.S. has just moved closer to solo spot on an ignominious list: The U.S. and Australia alone among industrialized nations fail to offer paid parental leave, and last week an Australian government panel held hearings on implementing paid leave. It’s unclear when Australia would get the leave, but the recently elected Labor government has supported paid leave.
Under one plan being floated, mothers would get six months paid leave and fathers four weeks. I don’t like the gender bias of that, but that’s quibbling. It’s a vast improvement over the current Australian scheme, which grants families a payment of $5,000 on the birth of a child. Because of this credit, some sources already put the U.S. as alone in failing to give paid parental leave. That’s incorrect, because the baby credit is very different from paid leave, and it’s important to understand why.
A child credit was a major plank—the most expensive plank—in the Republican Party’s Contract with America back in the ‘90s. Whereas paid leave from one’s job empowers women, enabling them to stay in the paid labor market, child credits, like Australia’s or the Contract with America’s, are payments to families and in no way alter the barriers to mothers’ employment. In fact, they can encourage women to stay out of the paid labor market, further reinforcing gender role specialization within families and therefore the imbalance in power between women who specialize in unpaid caring labor and men who specialize in paid labor.
Another way to look at it is that paid parental leave reduces the economic penalty for child rearing, whereas child credits are rewards for breeding (and since they go as much to fathers who don’t engage in caregiving as to mothers, or fathers, who do, they reward a merely biological function). People who choose not to breed—and who might do so for admirable reasons, such as not contributing to the overpopulation of the world—might rightly resent such bias. Paid leave reduces a tilt in the playing field, while child credits increase the tilt toward traditional families and inequality within them.
Under one plan being floated, mothers would get six months paid leave and fathers four weeks. I don’t like the gender bias of that, but that’s quibbling. It’s a vast improvement over the current Australian scheme, which grants families a payment of $5,000 on the birth of a child. Because of this credit, some sources already put the U.S. as alone in failing to give paid parental leave. That’s incorrect, because the baby credit is very different from paid leave, and it’s important to understand why.
A child credit was a major plank—the most expensive plank—in the Republican Party’s Contract with America back in the ‘90s. Whereas paid leave from one’s job empowers women, enabling them to stay in the paid labor market, child credits, like Australia’s or the Contract with America’s, are payments to families and in no way alter the barriers to mothers’ employment. In fact, they can encourage women to stay out of the paid labor market, further reinforcing gender role specialization within families and therefore the imbalance in power between women who specialize in unpaid caring labor and men who specialize in paid labor.
Another way to look at it is that paid parental leave reduces the economic penalty for child rearing, whereas child credits are rewards for breeding (and since they go as much to fathers who don’t engage in caregiving as to mothers, or fathers, who do, they reward a merely biological function). People who choose not to breed—and who might do so for admirable reasons, such as not contributing to the overpopulation of the world—might rightly resent such bias. Paid leave reduces a tilt in the playing field, while child credits increase the tilt toward traditional families and inequality within them.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Children are parasites?
When I recently published an article at Crosscut.com on Washington state’s landmark paid family leave legislation (only the second in the nation), readers’ responses were striking. Two-thirds of comments expressed the same feeling: the legislation is “a token for the irresponsible,” a “confiscation of my tax dollars” for “social parasites.” One reader even called the legislation morally depraved.
Putting aside the extreme language and not terribly coherent arguments (“If you can't take the time to raise a child why are you having one?”—the point is precisely to enable parents to take time to care for their newborns), I think these comments reveal an important and deeply American strain of thought. The line of thinking goes something like this: Individualism is the ideal state, we shouldn’t be fostering dependency, people are responsible for themselves and their own children, and don’t ask the rest of us for handouts.
This line of thinking has some appeal—I value individualism and independence myself. But independence is an achievement, attained only temporarily in the middle of life by even the luckiest of us. Somehow I just know that these letter writers were men, and men who have forgotten that they got to their enviably independent state only thanks to years of care by their mothers (and probably many others). (And who probably have wives who do their laundry, cook their food, and maybe type their manuscripts.) I’d say the real social parasites are all of us on our unpaid mothers. So if you have a distaste for this kind of social parasitism, consistency requires you to support test tube gestation and the raising of children in dormitories by well-paid professionals. Or you don’t mind the human race ceasing to exist. Or—phew—how about a little paid family leave?
I tend to think people like the letter writers don’t mind dependency—of their wives on them, for example—and it’s in fact the independence social supports like paid family leave foster in women that discomfits them. I’d like to ask the reader who wrote that “I for one am not planning on being a social parasite in my dotage” who he thinks will be paying for his Social Security. In fact, it’s those who are children now (it’s a politically useful myth that we each pay for our own Social Security).
I may mock this kind of thinking, but it has a powerful hold in America, and loosing its grip is crucial and difficult.
Putting aside the extreme language and not terribly coherent arguments (“If you can't take the time to raise a child why are you having one?”—the point is precisely to enable parents to take time to care for their newborns), I think these comments reveal an important and deeply American strain of thought. The line of thinking goes something like this: Individualism is the ideal state, we shouldn’t be fostering dependency, people are responsible for themselves and their own children, and don’t ask the rest of us for handouts.
This line of thinking has some appeal—I value individualism and independence myself. But independence is an achievement, attained only temporarily in the middle of life by even the luckiest of us. Somehow I just know that these letter writers were men, and men who have forgotten that they got to their enviably independent state only thanks to years of care by their mothers (and probably many others). (And who probably have wives who do their laundry, cook their food, and maybe type their manuscripts.) I’d say the real social parasites are all of us on our unpaid mothers. So if you have a distaste for this kind of social parasitism, consistency requires you to support test tube gestation and the raising of children in dormitories by well-paid professionals. Or you don’t mind the human race ceasing to exist. Or—phew—how about a little paid family leave?
I tend to think people like the letter writers don’t mind dependency—of their wives on them, for example—and it’s in fact the independence social supports like paid family leave foster in women that discomfits them. I’d like to ask the reader who wrote that “I for one am not planning on being a social parasite in my dotage” who he thinks will be paying for his Social Security. In fact, it’s those who are children now (it’s a politically useful myth that we each pay for our own Social Security).
I may mock this kind of thinking, but it has a powerful hold in America, and loosing its grip is crucial and difficult.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Jersey passes landmark paid family leave
No more New Jersey jokes for me, ever. Jersey this week became the third state in the nation to pass paid parental leave legislation and Governor Jon Corzine, a strong supporter of the bill, is expected to sign it any day. As of July 2009, parents in New Jersey will be able take up to six weeks paid leave to care for a newborn, newly adopted child or a seriously ill family member while receiving up to two-thirds of their salary (up to a maximum of $524 weekly). The leave will be funded by a 0.09 percent tax on workers' salaries that would amount to an average of roughly $33 a year.
There are some disquieting oddities in this law. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal,
And why a doctor’s note? Just what would the note say? How about: Paid family leave has been found to reduce infant mortality by as much as 20 percent and to make babies more likely to receive regular medical checkups, get immunizations, and be breastfed. I’m not sure most doctors know this. I’ve really had it up to here with our culture’s worship of the authority of doctors.
And of course there are all those people who work for small employers, who under the law wouldn’t have any guarantee that their jobs would be waiting for them when they returned from the leave.
Still and all, it’s great news. The U.S. is taking baby steps to join the rest of the civilized world in supporting parenthood.
Until now, California has been a lone trailblazer, the only state to offer paid leave (since 2004). My own state of Washington passed paid family leave last year, but has been struggling to implement and fund it. See my article at Crosscut.
There are some disquieting oddities in this law. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal,
Under the legislation, workers would have to exhaust maternity and disability leave and would also have to use at least two weeks of sick leave and vacation time prior to taking paid family leave. Workers would also have to give employers prior notice of their intent to take paid family leave and provide a doctor's note. Employers with less than 50 employees would not have to guarantee the jobs of those who take leave would be held.What if you have no vacation or sick leave? Unlike most of the rest of the world, the U.S. does not require employers to offer paid sick leave, and almost half of private sector employers don’t. Lots of workers don’t get vacation pay either, or get very little. Low-wage workers are least likely to get either kind of leave.
And why a doctor’s note? Just what would the note say? How about: Paid family leave has been found to reduce infant mortality by as much as 20 percent and to make babies more likely to receive regular medical checkups, get immunizations, and be breastfed. I’m not sure most doctors know this. I’ve really had it up to here with our culture’s worship of the authority of doctors.
And of course there are all those people who work for small employers, who under the law wouldn’t have any guarantee that their jobs would be waiting for them when they returned from the leave.
Still and all, it’s great news. The U.S. is taking baby steps to join the rest of the civilized world in supporting parenthood.
Until now, California has been a lone trailblazer, the only state to offer paid leave (since 2004). My own state of Washington passed paid family leave last year, but has been struggling to implement and fund it. See my article at Crosscut.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Kudos to Chris Dodd
Here’s a reason to be sorry Chris Dodd has bowed out of the presidential race: Dodd is the original author of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which for the first time in U.S. history required employers to grant family leave. Okay, so it’s a minimal little law—the leave is unpaid, only large employers are covered, and you have to have worked in the job at least a year. But still. It was a good start.
Dodd also has sponsored a bill that would finally require employers to give paid family leave, His Family Leave Insurance Act would provide eight weeks of paid leave. The bill has gone nowhere. But let’s give the man credit for working on it.
Still, not too much credit. As a savvy politico friend of mine noted, unlike John Edwards, who has used his candidacy to bring issues of inequality into the national conversation, Dodd didn’t use his candidacy to draw attention to the issues of family leave and work–family life balance. I’m still waiting for a candidate to do that. I’ll keep you posted on the proposals of other Democratic candidates on these issues.
Meanwhile, as Joanne Bamberger has noted at the Huffington Post, the Republican candidates to a man are silent on the practical difficulties mothers (and fathers) face and how to solve them.
Dodd also has sponsored a bill that would finally require employers to give paid family leave, His Family Leave Insurance Act would provide eight weeks of paid leave. The bill has gone nowhere. But let’s give the man credit for working on it.
Still, not too much credit. As a savvy politico friend of mine noted, unlike John Edwards, who has used his candidacy to bring issues of inequality into the national conversation, Dodd didn’t use his candidacy to draw attention to the issues of family leave and work–family life balance. I’m still waiting for a candidate to do that. I’ll keep you posted on the proposals of other Democratic candidates on these issues.
Meanwhile, as Joanne Bamberger has noted at the Huffington Post, the Republican candidates to a man are silent on the practical difficulties mothers (and fathers) face and how to solve them.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Gender roles and Sweden's daddy leave
The question about gender roles being a function of biology seems to hang a lot of people up when you start talking feminism and parenting. I think a lot of people think feminism means insisting on androgyny, and I think if you dig a little deeper many think that means rejecting the virtues and activities that have been traditionally associated with mothers—which isn’t my idea of feminism. I also think that many women resign themselves to their frustration over their partner’s failure to take an equal parenting role and make sense of how they themselves suddenly became hausfraus by attributing it to biology. I don’t know or care much what’s “natural,” but I’m for freedom from the penalties and rewards that enforce gender roles. We’ll certainly never know what’s natural until we erase those constraints.
These roles are deeply rooted and the mechanisms that enforce them complex. Case in point: The government of Sweden noticed that despite their generous family policies, which include a FULL YEAR of paid parental leave (go clean up your drool now), which could be allocated between parents as they choose, few fathers were taking advantage of it. In 1994, mothers were taking about 89 percent of the leave, and although Sweden has one of the world's highest rates of female participation in the labor force and smallest gender pay gaps, the gap persists and a glass ceiling is evident. So in 1995, Sweden set aside a month of paid leave that could be used only by fathers and in 2002 instituted a second month of “daddy leave.”
It’s too soon to tell what effect this will have (although fathers’ share of family leave has been going up since the 1995 change), and I don’t see how such an explicitly gendered policy could ever be instituted under the U.S. legal system. But let me leave you with the words of the Swedish parliament when the daddy leave was passed. Read ‘em and weep for our own benighted government.
These roles are deeply rooted and the mechanisms that enforce them complex. Case in point: The government of Sweden noticed that despite their generous family policies, which include a FULL YEAR of paid parental leave (go clean up your drool now), which could be allocated between parents as they choose, few fathers were taking advantage of it. In 1994, mothers were taking about 89 percent of the leave, and although Sweden has one of the world's highest rates of female participation in the labor force and smallest gender pay gaps, the gap persists and a glass ceiling is evident. So in 1995, Sweden set aside a month of paid leave that could be used only by fathers and in 2002 instituted a second month of “daddy leave.”
It’s too soon to tell what effect this will have (although fathers’ share of family leave has been going up since the 1995 change), and I don’t see how such an explicitly gendered policy could ever be instituted under the U.S. legal system. But let me leave you with the words of the Swedish parliament when the daddy leave was passed. Read ‘em and weep for our own benighted government.
"It is important that fathers use their opportunity of taking parental leave. Research shows that an early established and close relation between father and child is beneficial for both the father and the child and provides a good founding for the relation later in life. ...
An increased use of parental leave by fathers should contribute to a change in attitudes among managers so that they will view parental leave as something natural to consider when planning and organizing the work. Such change in attitudes is necessary for both men and women to dare to take parental leave without a feeling of jeopardizing their career or opportunities of development at work. Another reason for increasing fathers' use of parental leave is that women's prospects of achieving equal opportunities with men in the labor market are limited as long as women are responsible for the practical housework and children. A shared responsibility for practical care of children would mean a more even distribution of interruptions in work between women and men, and women would thereby gain better opportunities of development and making a career in their profession."
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