Guess how many nations provide paid maternity leave? 25? 50? 75? Try 170.
How many of those do you think require at least 14 weeks of leave? 98.
Let's look at it from the other end: How many countries do you think have no paid maternity leave? The answer is: Four.
By now, I'll bet that you've realized that the United States is one of those four. Can you identify the others? They are:
Liberia
Papua New Guinea
Swaziland.
Nice neighborhood.
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3 comments:
What are the numbers for Paternity Leave?
We do not have madatory paid maternaty leave for two reasons:
You have the freedom to choose between not having a child until you can afford it or having safety nets set up if you do. I.E. - insurance, savings and family. If you CHOOSE to have a child you cannot support there is adoption or hard work to provide a good life to your child. Please do not try to make me feel bad because other countries do something that sounds good in thoery but stinks in practice.
I don't know the figures for paternity leave--although I think that they are rising; I do know that Germany has recently instituted a generous paternity-leave provision.
As for Ray's comment, I am more interested in the well-being of the child than in making moral judgments about the wisdom of parents in having a baby. (Ray, the utilitarian view of your position would suggest that you are in favor of permitting abortion to take care of those pregnancies that would otherwise result in children to people of insufficient means--how d'you feel about that?) Many people throughout history have had children they really couldn't afford, and they have worked tremendously hard to make ends meet. We should applaud such quiet heroism. The larger question, though, is whether it's best for the children, their families and the nation to make them do so. The United States is in a tiny minority of nations that say yes. When such an overwhelming number of others make a different choice than we do, it's time for us to take another look at what we are doing.
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