France vs U.S. -- Paid Maternity and Paternity Leave
Living in France today, it's easy to wonder why the United States does not have laws and budgets that encourage more men and women to have families and careers? France is way ahead of the United States in gender equality, childcare benefits, maternity leave, and choice preschools.
Across the European Union, countries are adopting laws similar to France’s Family Allowance laws that allow men and women to continue to receive full-time salary while on maternity leave, and then stipends to help make sure that their quality of life does not suffer after having children. This not only ensures that newborns have ample time with their parents, but also allows for higher employment rates.
According to a 2012 European Union survey, 60 percent of women in France are employed fulltime, which is only 8 percent lower than men in France. On the other end of the spectrum, American women do not have the luxury of pursuing a family and career at the same time. Where France has the Family Allowance laws, and subsidized childcare, the United States only has the Family Medical Leave Act which only applies if you have to have been at your job for at least a year, and even then it only allows twelve weeks of unpaid leave.
In the United States paid maternity leave is almost unheard of. Only 13 percent of employers offer full benefits for paid maternity leave. In a study conducted in 2015 on American women who had babies and then returned to work, one in four women returned to their jobs less than two weeks after having their baby for fear of losing their job. That’s right, whether healed or not, against the doctors advice, American women go right back to work after having a baby because there is no option. According to this same study, 40 percent of American families with children under the age of 18 rely heavily on the mother’s income. With these statistics for women, you can imagine paid maternity leave for the father is simply ridiculous to most American employers.
In France women are paid full-time salary up to 16 weeks after having a new baby and men are allowed 11 days with full pay. This not only encourages men to be active participants in their families but also allows for gender equality that does not insist that the woman is the one who must stay home with the newborn. That is what I call a step in the right direction. For too long it has been assumed that women are naturally the ones who should give up their jobs and stay home after having children. But today men are coming to realize that it’s unfair to make that assumption and the European governments are all too happy to help these couples share in the duties of taking care of the family without fear of losing their jobs.
If that wasn’t enough, France and other EU countries have better preschools and primary schools as well as better benefits for both parents and children thanks to their all encompassing medical policies. So think about it for a minute… 60 percent of French women and 68 percent of French men are employed fulltime. Even after taking off days or weeks of paid maternity leave, their careers stay intact. Then think of the one in four women in the United States who go back to work less than 2 weeks after giving birth no matter what their doctors advise and in spite of the desire to stay home with their new baby because the American government has no budget for helping these families and the American employers do not care to give them paid leave that they desperately need and deserve.
In the long struggle for gender equality, the United States could learn a lot from the European Union. France not only allows for paid maternity leave but even has almost 3 percent of the GDP budget that is specifically allocated to these couples. The United States has nothing of the kind. I couldn’t agree more with the Huffington Post that it’s heartbreaking to hear of these women who go straight back to work after giving birth, just to work all day and come home to sleep with “one hand on my baby because that’s all the connection I could get.”
