Policy At A Glance: September 2018 INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH POLICY AND LEADERSHIP

1993

Federal Family and Medical Leave Act passes

2004 California’s paid family leave goes into effect

2009 New Jersey’s paid family leave goes into effect

2013 Federal Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act fails to pass

Important Dates

State & Federal Policies for Maternity Leave

Maternity Leave in the US According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), maternity leave is “employment-protected leaves for mothers to be used around the time of childbirth.”1 Mothers in OECD countries receive 18 weeks of paid maternity leave on average.2

However, most employed women in the United States do not automatically get a paid, job-protected maternity leave when they are ready to have a child. This is because the United States is the only OECD country without a national paid parental leave policy (many countries also provide paid paternity leave).2 Our nation surpasses others in policies that guarantee employment for all groups regardless of gender, age, or disability but we seriously lag behind in maternity leave policies, placing us in the same rank as Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland.3

Employers are also not required to offer parental leave as part of their employee benefits package. As a result, only 13 percent of full-time workers have any form of paid family leave through their employers according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.4

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Maternity leave is not the norm in the United States. In the absence of a uniform national policy, pregnant women use a patchwork of benefits to birth, recover, and bond with their child.

Rhode Island’s paid family leave goes into effect

2014

2018 New York’s paid family leave goes into effect

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INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH POLICY AND LEADERSHIP September 2018

Federal Maternity Leave Policy The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is the only federal law that guarantees maternity leave in the United States. FMLA provides job protection while employees take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for family members with serious health condition, birth and care for a newborn child, bond with their recently placed foster or adopted child, or take medical leave for their own serious health conditions. Fathers are also eligible to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected paternity leave under FMLA; however, if a couple works for the same company, they are limited to a combined total of 12 weeks of leave.5 Not all employees are eligible to receive FMLA benefits. FMLA does not apply to employers with less than 50 employees and the employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours for the 12 months preceding the leave to receive FMLA benefits.6 Further, because FMLA leave is unpaid, it does not help families who need the mother’s or father’s income. Research suggests that only half of all working women in the United States receive FMLA benefits and the average length of maternity leave, when taken, is ten weeks.7 According to a report by the Department of Labor, 12 percent of mothers take a week or less and 11 percent of mothers take between one to two weeks of maternity leave.8 This means that almost one in four women (23 percent) go back to work within two weeks of giving birth to support their families. Two most common reasons for not taking family leave are 1) not being able to afford unpaid leave (49.4 percent) and 2) the risk of job loss (18.3 percent).9 Almost 40 percent of employees on family leave do not receive any pay and about 30 percent of private-sector employees go into debt as a result of their leave.9

Maternity Leave and Socioeconomic Status Low-income mothers may not afford unpaid maternity leave under FMLA. To exacerbate this unmet need, • Women who are younger, unmarried, or making

less than $20,000 a year are less likely to work for a company that offers company-sponsored paid leave7

• 35.3 percent of high school graduates have access to paid family leave through their employer while 60.4 percent of college graduates do9

Whether intentional or not, new mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds have unequal access to maternity leave.

Less educated women, who tend to have lower-paying jobs and fewer financial resources, are more likely to take less

time off after having children.9

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INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH POLICY AND LEADERSHIP September 2018

1

State Maternity Leave Policy

In the absence of a uniform, national, paid maternity leave policy, the responsibility is left to the mothers to patch together sick time, vacation time, company-offered leave, state-offered leave, public assistance, private short-term disability insurance and others to prepare for birth, recover from birth, and bond with their child. Only a handful of states offer paid maternity leave in the United States and as FMLA provides job protection up to 12 weeks of leave, many companies require employees to use accrued sick time or vacation time as part of those 12 weeks rather than using them to extend their leave. Here are the states that offer paid family leave and their policies:

California is the first state to offer partially Paid Family Leave (PFL) for up to six weeks, funded entirely by an employee-paid payroll tax through California’s State Disability Insurance system.10 Job protection is provided through FMLA (for those who are eligible) or the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). Unlike FMLA, PFL includes all employers regardless of size, although some self-employed workers are excluded. California’s PFL and the federal FMLA leave must be taken concurrently.

New Jersey is the second state to offer partially paid family leave for up to six weeks, modeled closely after California’s PFL and also funded exclusively by employees.

2

Rhode Island improves on California’s and New Jersey’s paid family leave programs by guaranteeing job protection. However, it only offers up to four weeks of partially paid family leave.

New York’s PFL went into effect in 2018 and will be fully implemented by 2021. New York’s paid family leave is the most generous by far and will provide 12 weeks of job-protected partially paid family leave when fully implemented.11

Washington approved its PFL in 2007 but implementation was delayed as Washington, unlike other states with PFL, does not have an existing state disability insurance system.10 Washington’s PFL is set to start in 2020 and will be funded by both employees and employers.12 While Washington’s PFL will cover up to 12 weeks of partially paid family leave, employees with multiple events will be able to take up to 18 weeks in a 12-month period.12

In addition, District of Columbia’s new PFL is scheduled to take effect in 2020.11

Maternity Leave and Public Health

Investing in paid, job-protected maternity leave is the ultimate upstream approach to demonstrate our nation’s commitment to promoting health. Research from European countries with established paid maternity leave shows that parental leave is a cost-

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INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH POLICY AND LEADERSHIP September 2018

effective way to improve the health and wellbeing of our future workforce.13 Maternity leave also increases breastfeeding, which is critical to the health of the baby.14 Paid maternity leave further improves the mental health, vitality, role function, and general wellbeing of mothers after child birth.13,15

Policy Outlook for Paid Maternity Leave

While FMLA provides job-protected family leave for up to 12 weeks, its reach is limited. In 2014, legislators failed to pass the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act of 2013, modeled after California’s and New Jersey’s partially paid family leave program. This bill has been introduced again in 2017 so congress can reassess the implementation of a nationwide paid family leave.16 States, including Arizona, Oregon, Illinois, and Maine, are also considering their own paid family leave programs to better meet the needs of their workforce.10 References

1. https://www.oecd.org/els/family/PF2_5_Trends_in_leave_entitlements_around_childbirth.pdf

2. https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF2_1_Parental_leave_systems.pdf 3. https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/Work%20Family%20and%20

Equity%20Index-How%20does%20the%20US%20measure%20up-Jan%202007.pdf 4. https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-2/paid-leave-in-private-industry-over-the-

past-20-years.htm 5. https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-

idx?SID=54877236c6193bf0d7d562d1ebc2c1b8&mc=true&node=pt29.3.825&rgn=div5#se29.3.825_1201

6. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs28.htm 7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3840152/ 8. https://www.dol.gov/asp/evaluation/fmla/FMLA-Detailed-Results-Appendix.pdf 9. http://cepr.net/documents/fmla-paid-leave-2014-06.pdf 10. http://cepr.net/documents/publications/paid-family-leave-1-2011.pdf 11. http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/paid-leave/paid-

leave-works-in-california-new-jersey-and-rhode-island.pdf 12. https://esd.wa.gov/paid-family-medical-leave 13. Ruhm, C.J. Parental Leave and Child Health. Journal of Health Economics.

19(2000): 931-960 14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3387873/ 15. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25680101 16. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/337/actions 17. https://hbr.org/2011/01/paid-family-leave-pays-off-in

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Questions? Please contact Helen Jung, DrPH, MPH. Senior Health Policy Analyst at the Institute for Health Policy & Leadership (helenjung@llu.edu)

Studies show that paid maternity leave does not

hurt business profitability, productivity, or turnover. Nine percent of California

businesses actually saw cost savings due to reduced turnover and benefit costs while 87 percent reported no cost increase with the

state’s paid leave program.17