Find local stories in companies’ paid parental leave policies
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The appointment of former Google exec Marissa Mayer as the new chief executive officer at Yahoo! - and her subsequent announcement that she is expecting a child in October and plans to take a brief, working maternity leave – has sparked a wave of national columns, blog posts and articles about the state of parental leave in the United States.
It’s a hot-button topic and one you might want to take up locally. Some feel that extended leave after the birth of the child is compassionate and a societal good; others view parenthood as a lifestyle choice that employers aren’t obliged to subsidize or accommodate. Many writers are lambasting Mayer’s announcement, saying that her plan for a short motherhood leave sets a difficult precedent or expectation for women who don’t have the resources she – with an estimated net worth of $300 million – can command in terms of child care, household help and flexible working arrangements.
Objectively, the United States does lag most other countries in mandated time off for new parents; check out the tables published by the Clearinghouse on International Developments on Child, Youth and Family Policy (Columbia University) — while the data is 10 years old, the contrast between the U.S. and most nations, even far poorer ones, is quite remarkable. And according to this Harvard/McGill University study, the only countries besides the United States that don’t mandate paid parental leave of some sort are Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
Obviously this is a public policy issue, but it’s also interesting to look at from the employee and employer point of view. Why not survey a couple dozen of your area’s largest or most desirable employers about their policies? What is the cost to companies of offering a richer leave package, and what percentage of the workforce is using parental leave at any given time? Of those that don’t offer paid leave, why? Ask about the business model — maybe a company orrganization with a more transient workforce doesn’t benefit as much as, say, a law firm where long-time employee relationships are more prized.
WorkingMother.com publishes an annual listing of companies with what it considers the best parental leave policies; you should skim last year’ s list to see if any local employers are on it. The site also is hosting a petition drive in an effort to bring a paid parental leave bill to Congress by 2015. What do local employers have to say about that?
This pro-paid-leave Forbes opinion column has links to a number of good resources and an explanation of how paid leave works in California and New Jersey, which have employee-funded pools. You also should seek out trade and professional associations that may be lobbying against such efforts at the state or national level.
Finally, another angle to the Marissa Mayer story worth localizing is the dearth of female CEOs. A few years ago I looked at the proxy statements for every publicly traded company in Michigan and found one lone woman at the helm of a fashion retailer. Only 18 of the Fortune 500 are headed by women, a new high but that’s still fewer than 4 percent of the country’s largest corporations. Why not do a similar analysis of your state’s large public and private employers? I’m not a big fan of those “woman power” articles that profile a subjectively-picked handful of female business leaders, but an objective ranking of women in top posts in your area and perhaps a summary of their career path, strategy or advice to others could be a timely feature given the Marissa Mayer peg.