When Australia passed a parental leave law in 2010, it left the United States as the only leading nation not to offer paid leave for mothers of newborns. A majority of the rest of the world has paid maternity leave policies. Swaziland and Papua New Guinea are the only other countries that do not. Many other countries give new fathers paid time off or allow parents to share paid leave. My discussion of paid family medical leave, focusing on maternity leave, is in fact addressing the larger matter of improving our society as a whole. When President Bill Clinton signed the Family Medical Leave Act into law on February 5, 1993, he stated that American workers "will no longer need to choose between the job they need and the family they love." The passing of the FMLA was the first time that the United States government acknowledged and attempted to develop a "work-family policy" through legislation.
The FMLA was intended to achieve this family-friendly goal "by encouraging stability in the family as well as productivity in the work place." Congress outlined five main purposes of the FMLA in the …show more content…
They are also concerned that creating leave regulations directed toward women would provide employers with more of a disincentive to employ women. Nevertheless, the need for the FMLA had not disappeared in persistent social trends in regards to gender and workforce makeup. In spite of the increasing numbers of women employed in the workforce, women continued to remain responsible for the majority of unpaid household labor, including childcare. Equal distribution of domestic responsibility was necessary to ensure more balanced opportunities for both genders to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to care for their families and personal health. Congress passed the FMLA partly in reverence of this need for greater gender balance between work and
The FMLA was intended to achieve this family-friendly goal "by encouraging stability in the family as well as productivity in the work place." Congress outlined five main purposes of the FMLA in the …show more content…
They are also concerned that creating leave regulations directed toward women would provide employers with more of a disincentive to employ women. Nevertheless, the need for the FMLA had not disappeared in persistent social trends in regards to gender and workforce makeup. In spite of the increasing numbers of women employed in the workforce, women continued to remain responsible for the majority of unpaid household labor, including childcare. Equal distribution of domestic responsibility was necessary to ensure more balanced opportunities for both genders to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to care for their families and personal health. Congress passed the FMLA partly in reverence of this need for greater gender balance between work and