Written by: Sara Radovic
Edited by: Keerthana Rao
"The International Labour Organization of the United Nations - the central global agency dedicated to labor and family issues - considers maternity protection a fundamental human right."
- Maya Rossin-Slater
The United States, according to the New York Times, is one of six countries – and the only “rich country” – in the world without a national paid maternity leave. Claire Cain Miller (2021) reproaches this astonishing fact with the revelation that the average paid maternity leave [globally] is twenty-nine weeks. The U.S. Department of Labor, however, does provide employees with unpaid, job-protected leave of up to twelve weeks through the Family and Medical Leave Act, which may be utilized “for the birth and care of the newborn child of an employee.” These twelve weeks are unpaid and, unfortunately, not fully guaranteed, especially for employees who are not eligible for such a leave.
Comparisons are often drawn between paid maternity leave in the States and various European nations, particularly because paid maternity leave in Europe is fully paid and guaranteed. “All EU member states,” according to Janet C. Gornick and Ariane Hedewisch (2014), “are subject to Directive 92/85/EEC (Council of Ministers 1992) on the health and safety of pregnant workers, which guarantees fourteen weeks of job-protected maternity leave, payable at least at the rate of statutory sick pay in each country.” Parents in most European countries are even “entitled to substantially longer leave than required by EU regulations.” Scandinavian nations exemplify the golden standard for paid maternity leave, as corroborated by Steven Hill (2010). Mothers in Sweden receive sixty-nine weeks of leave and approximately two-thirds of their usual wages during the break, while mothers in Norway are granted about a year off at eighty percent of their salaries. Once the mother returns to work, “it is the father’s turn to stay home and care for their child’s second year of life, receiving about 50 percent of salary.”
Maya Rossin (2011) anxiously notes that unpaid maternity is likely to impact birth [and child] outcomes primarily because “[t]he guarantee of maternity leave may reduce maternal stress during pregnancy.” A pregnant woman’s heightened stress levels will ultimately affect how her infant bonds with her within the first year of its life – one of the most vulnerable periods in which the baby must receive as much motherly care and attention as possible. According to a study conducted by Katharina Staehelin et al. (2007), mothers who were given shorter maternity leaves experienced significantly more negative interactions with their newborns than women with longer maternity leaves. The importance of a prolonged paid maternity leave is emphasized by an American study of 3,850 mothers conducted in 2018 that Suzanne Leigh (2020) synopsizes, as it revealed the duration of paid maternity leave to be directly correlated to positive mother-infant interactions, “leading to secure attachment, empathy and later academic success.”
Advocates of a national paid maternity leave in the United States accentuate the value of breastfeeding. Staehelin and her colleagues compiled four studies that collectively disclosed the duration of breastfeeding to be significantly higher in mothers with longer maternity leaves. Hill writes of the benefits breastfed children receive, including lower rates of infections, childhood diabetes, eczema, asthma, and obesity, advising that “maternity leave better facilitates such breastfeeding.” Mothers also benefit from breastfeeding, as Michael Baker and Kevin Mulligan (2008) ascertain through outcomes that include “an earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight, improved bone remineralization, and a reduced risk of ovarian and premenopausal breast cancer.” In addition, the American Academy of Pediatrics (1997) “recommends exclusive breastfeeding for about six months, with the continuation of breastfeeding for one year or longer as mutually desired by mother and infant.” It is thus imperative that routine breastfeeding be not disrupted; such a disruption may be avoided by providing mothers with extended maternity leave.
A national paid maternity leave also guarantees a healthier recovery for the mother. Reproduction is a natural phenomenon that requires as much time and patience for recovery as possible. Belinda Hewitt et al. (2017) published observations they gathered from an Australian evaluation of new mothers whose postpartum mental and physical health immensely improved with the granting of a paid maternity leave. Between ten and twenty percent of mothers suffer from postpartum depression “or face an increased risk of other psychological disorders, including post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and psychosis." Hewitt et al. also document their findings on “mothers’ physical health suffer[ing] during this time with increased incidence of backache, fatigue, perineal pain, and gastrointestinal problems.” They affirm that good maternal health directly affects infant and child well-being and encourages mothers’ workforce engagement. New mothers must, hence, not be compelled to recover and return to work within a limited interval but permitted as much time as necessary to heal fully [and bond with their babies].
Chris Knoester and Richard J. Petts (2021) report that an astounding eighty-two percent of Americans favor a national paid maternity leave, with most of them seeking an implementation similar to that of a European one. Nordic nations present the most generous, ideal, and prosperous paid maternity leaves because of the “high value they place on families through their social policies,” as Ermalynn M. Kiehl and Marjorie A. White (2003) attest in a study they conducted on maternal adaptation during childbearing in Norway, Sweden, and the United States. One can then safely conclude that the enactment of a paid maternity leave modeled after a Scandinavian one will result in satisfactory outcomes for mothers in terms of role, health, and workplace engagement. As the Harvard Review of Psychiatry (2020) notes, the States are “facing a clear, evidence-based mandate to create a national paid maternity leave policy" promptly.
[The views expressed in this article are those of the author and the author alone; they do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the first RULR Editorial Board and Rutgers University.]
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