Maternity is
not a private issue
By Martina Law
To be
honest, the discussion around
statutory paid maternity leave
caught me off-guard and as a
surprise. I thought that in the
21st Century paid maternity leave
was not a privilege but a
fundamental right that doesn’t
need further attention. I thought
that the time has come for men and
women to strive for genuine
equality in society, and that paid
maternity leave was only one of
the building blocs to achieve just
that. I guess I was wrong.
At
present, almost every country has
provisions for maternity leave,
allowing mothers to leave their
workplace for a limited time
around childbirth and returning to
their job afterwards. These
provisions vary from country to
country. In the United States
maternity leave amounts to a
maximum of 12 weeks of
job-protected leave within a 12
months period. Many European
nations offer a more generous
package. Sweden offers the most
maternity leave, at 96 weeks. UK
women receive 40 weeks maternity
leave, and German women are
entitled to take 14 weeks of paid
maternity leave. Despite the
generous maternity leave
provisions in many parts of
Europe, many European women
actually return to their workplace
on average six weeks before their
statutory maternity pay runs out.
Outside the EU, the highest
provider of benefits in Europe,
and globally, is Norway. Norwegian
woman receive up to one year of
paid maternity leave. That’s not
all. In Norway, every mother has
the right to two hours off work
per day if she goes back to work.
As a mother I think I should have
been born in Norway.
But
it’s here in the US where I hear
bickering about maternity leave.
True, women taking maternity leave
create a problem of having to
re-organize work. The employer has
to find a way to get the work done
formerly performed by the mother
on leave. The employer may choose
to arrange for work-sharing or
employ a temporary substitute.
Having the work done by co-workers
should only be considered for
short-term leaves. Interestingly
enough, the costs of employing a
substitute will generally decrease
with increasing maternity leave
duration, especially for skilled
jobs. Here we go, that should give
US businesses an incentive to
increase their maternity leave
instead of forcing women to
literally jump off of the delivery
table and crawl back into their
offices.
Don’t
get me wrong. I sympathize with
smaller businesses and the
challenges they have to face when
dealing with maternity leave. But
saying that in order to protect
businesses it should be a woman’s
or family’s choice whether to have
children or pursue a
career would be utterly unfair.
Simply said, it is not
a family’s decision but a
society’s decision. In the face of
an aging population and heated
debates evolving around Social
Security and pensions on both
sides of the pond, we need to take
the long view and value our next
generation's nurturers.
To
those in favor of a woman’s
either/or decision, I’d have a
couple of suggestions to throw in.
To the parents of daughters I’d
say, ask your daughters before
sending them off to College
whether they want to have children
in the future. Why would you want
to spend thousands of dollars on a
higher education if your daughters
want to have kids? Instead, get
the Porsche you have always dreamt
about. And to employers I’d say,
make sterilization a job
requirement. It’s as simple as
that!
Or
look at the bright side of
offering maternity leave: it
reduces turnover and preserves the
employer’s training investment; it
is an effective recruitment tool,
particularly for employers with
large female work forces; it
allows employees time to adjust to
their role as parents, and reduces
their stress at becoming new
parents, and gives them time to
prepare for infant care.
Women
have come a long way. Paid
maternity leave is just one of
many rights women have fought for
with the intention of improving
the labor market position of
women.. American society that
claims to value family highly
rather staggers behind many
European nations in this regard.
It’s here I encounter more working
mothers suffering burnout because
they are caught in the dilemma of
balancing children and career
without substantial support. I
believe that to truly value family
a society should consider
supporting women in managing both
children and a career, and
currently American society falls
short.
©
2006 All content property of European Weekly unless where otherwise
accredited
