Give Them A Break

5 Pages 1178 Words

The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of a need for change in the government maternity leave policy. Maternity leave is the ¡§period of disability¡¨ that a woman takes to recovery, usually 4- to 6-weeks (6- to 8-weeks if there is a c-section). (Babycenter) The idea of referring to the time needed to recover as a ¡§period of disability¡¨ should give some idea of the importance of enough time. (Babycenter) Many companies have maternity leave policies that could give them up to a year off, with pay, and guarantee that they would be able to return when they are ready. Other companies allow a very minimal amount of time, no pay, but will be allowed to return because of the protection against discrimination. The problem with these different policies is that women take different amounts of time to heal and there are different situations with every woman. With a set amount of time, this would give all women an equal amount of time to recover and if they did not need all the time, they would be able to return whenever they were better while still receiving a percentage of their incomes. There must be a government-regulated amount of paid time-off that companies and cooperations must allow their female employees who are to give birth or have just given birth.
The idea of having a set amount of time and percentage of income for everyone reflects Deborah Stone¡¦s idea of equity. (Stone 39) In a Utopian society, there would be complete equality and everyone would be able to take as much time off as they needed, but this is not always true. The problem is, although many other countries are not Utopian societies, the maternity leave policies that they have created are far more generous than that of the United States. ¡§The United States is still far behind many other countries such as Sweden, which grants more than a year of paid leave to new parents, whether they're mothers or fathers.¡¨ (Mortazavi 2000) The Un...