4 ms·

If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? In the US it's nowhere close. "The Family and Medical Le

If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? In the US it's nowhere close. "The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for mothers of newborn or newly adopted children... "California is the first state to offer paid paternity leave weeks (six weeks, partial payment). In the rest of the US, paternity pay weeks are not offered (therefore neither paternity paid leave weeks)." [1] Of course companies can offer what they want above the requirements, but even when it's offered it's very common for the paternity leave to lag far behind maternity leave. For instance, even for a company like Apple, which is generally pretty progressive, "U.S. employees will now have a few more weeks of paid parental leave: Young Smith says expectant mothers can take up to four weeks before a delivery and upwards of 14 weeks after and expectant fathers (and other non-birth parents) can take six-week parental leaves." [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States#Paternity_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_... [2] http://fortune.com/2014/10/02/apple-employee-perks/ http://fortune.com/2014/10/02/apple-employee-perks/

SaintGhurka 9y ago
>>If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? >In the US it's nowhere close. I think that wikipedia page has misleading or outdated information in the summary. FMLA leave covers both mothers and fathers equally. From the Department of Labor: "Both mother and father are entitled to FMLA leave for the birth of their child, or placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care." Bringing up California further confuses the issues, since that is about paid leave whereas FMLA is unpaid. I think the 6 weeks of paid leave in CA comes from the employer-paid disability insurance. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fmla/10a1.aspx https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fmla/10a1.aspx
- ghettoimp 9y ago
  Thanks, this is interesting and I'd like to learn more. FWIW I did some web searching for the policies at big tech companies (which of course offer more than the minimums. The following article is a bit dated (2015) but seems to give a nice summary of maternity- and paternity-leave policies. http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-amazon-apple-facebook/ http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-ama... The TLDR: some (e.g., Facebook, Netflix) have parity between mothers and fathers but most of them (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google, MS, Twitter) give at least some extra weeks for moms and/or birth moms.

SaintGhurka 9y ago

>>If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm? >In the US it's nowhere close. I think that wikipedia page has misleading or outdated information in the summary. FMLA leave covers both mothers and fathers equally. From the Department of Labor: "Both mother and father are entitled to FMLA leave for the birth of their child, or placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care." Bringing up California further confuses the issues, since that is about paid leave whereas FMLA is unpaid. I think the 6 weeks of paid leave in CA comes from the employer-paid disability insurance. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fmla/10a1.aspx https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/fmla/10a1.aspx

ghettoimp 9y ago
Thanks, this is interesting and I'd like to learn more. FWIW I did some web searching for the policies at big tech companies (which of course offer more than the minimums. The following article is a bit dated (2015) but seems to give a nice summary of maternity- and paternity-leave policies. http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-amazon-apple-facebook/ http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-ama... The TLDR: some (e.g., Facebook, Netflix) have parity between mothers and fathers but most of them (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google, MS, Twitter) give at least some extra weeks for moms and/or birth moms.