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American (and Papua New Guinean) exceptionalism

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posted on Jul, 30 2014 @ 05:35 PM
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According to the report, as of 2013, only the United States and Papua New Guinea didn’t require paid maternity leave.

The United States does require unpaid maternity leave, through the Family and Medical Leave Act. But even that law leaves a lot of workers ineligible for unpaid leave, either because their employer is too small to be covered by the law or because they haven’t worked for their firm for long enough.


www.washingtonpost.com...

I thought it was worth sharing here. So just two countries left and US one of them, sharing the spot with Papua New Guinea.

Personally I do see paid mother leave as a necessity in any nation. The time spent with the parents during the first couple of years affects the development of child incredibly. When both parents need to work in order for the family to survive, in the end the child will have severe disadvantage compared to children born into families, where one of the parents is staying home with the child and personally I do believe every child should have the same opportunities for life, whoever their parents are. I am not from US myself, so I am interested in American opinions on it. Round here, there is a paid mother/father leave of 3 years, with which personally I am satisfied with.
edit on 30-7-2014 by Cabin because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 30 2014 @ 06:53 PM
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a reply to: Cabin

Can we suppose a major aspect of that discrepancy in the US is due to the high ratio of women in the workplace versus other countries where typical US types of jobs are mostly filled by men? Yes, many of women in those countries have jobs, but not the type with benefits.

But without a doubt the US lags behind, if we were to compare paid time off from work (vacations/holidays) across the Western countries, we would find a huge disparity there also. And that would be a more accurate portrayal of how the American worker has been rooked for decades.

Isn't it a shame that about every country that you can name that was defeated or reduced to rubble during WWII has bettered the US in about every category of what is considered a "modern" world? What went wrong? Better phrased, who led us wrong, surely we can't blame any one political party? Maybe the people Eisenhower and JFK warned us about?


edit on 30-7-2014 by Aliensun because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 30 2014 @ 09:12 PM
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I never understood the notion of expecting a company to pay you for time not spent working....
Especially for long periods of times like maternity leave. How is a company supposed to be expected to pay for two people at the price of one? I am sure those kinds of things leads to people when choosing between a man or women for a job, to favor the man.
edit on Wed, 30 Jul 2014 21:15:28 -0500 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 31 2014 @ 05:51 AM
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originally posted by: Cabin

Personally I do see paid mother leave as a necessity in any nation. The time spent with the parents during the first couple of years affects the development of child incredibly. When both parents need to work in order for the family to survive, in the end the child will have severe disadvantage compared to children born into families, where one of the parents is staying home with the child and personally I do believe every child should have the same opportunities for life, whoever their parents are. I am not from US myself, so I am interested in American opinions on it. Round here, there is a paid mother/father leave of 3 years, with which personally I am satisfied with.


Wait.. was that a typo? 3 years of paid leave to the mother AND father? If it's 3 years, that is a serious burden for any company to bear. I would be satisfied with 3 years of paid leave too, but that sounds very unrealistic. A company would just as soon terminate your employment before that happens.

Here I heard of paid Paternity leave for the first time in my life, and was shocked. For paid paternity leave it is 1 week, and for maternity leave I forget how many months... But paid leave for years?!



posted on Jul, 31 2014 @ 06:45 AM
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a reply to: Philippines

3 years for mother or father, not both at the same time.

Company does not pay it, they just need to keep the job, so when mother or father comes back after 3 years, they can return to their previous job. The paid leave is paid by the government from the taxes, according to the previous salary of the mother/father.

It is necessary, at least in this country, as there are not enough babies born and the population is decreasing. It is already a small nation, so it is necessity to have such programs in order to guarantee the survival of the nation long-term



posted on Aug, 8 2014 @ 12:38 AM
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a reply to: Cabin
Ah now that makes a lot more sense now. Probably a lot cheaper and more beneficial than subsidized day care. 6 years total gets them to school age.

edit on Fri, 08 Aug 2014 00:38:55 -0500 by TKDRL because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 8 2014 @ 01:02 AM
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a reply to: Cabin

3 years is a long time to ask or even expect any company to give and even moreso when talking about paid leave. A lot can change in any job in that amount of time. A few months to maybe a year I could see, but really it is laws like this that help keep the glass ceiling in place. And I see this from a pro-labor view. The US does lag behind in terms of paid time off (vacations, shorter hours and the like), but there does come a point it becomes against the employees and businesses best interests.




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