A little known blemish of life in the USA is the absence of maternity leave. The good old US of A is one of only five countries (and the only developed country) that refuses to give its women paid leave during pregnancy and after birth. The other three are Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and Lesotho. Not really at the level of the US, are they? But then, as the Trump debacle has shown, things are not always what they seem up there.
Because of the inability of the federal government to pass legislation, states have began their own initiatives. California is the best so far and now offers up to six weeks of paid leave for workers, at 55 per cent of their regular weekly wage.
Compare that with the UK, which guarantees 52 weeks of leave for mothers; however, pay is only for 39 weeks at 90 per cent of weekly earnings. Only!
In T&T, since 2012, a woman is entitled to 14 weeks' maternity leave and may proceed on leave six weeks before the expected delivery date. She must return to work no later than 14 weeks from the date she proceeded on leave. She is entitled to one month's full pay and two months with half pay. Fathers get nothing. Then distinguished people complain that the father not interested.
Canada also guarantees one year of leave but pays only 55 per cent for the first 17 weeks. The additional 35 weeks can be taken by either parent but without pay.
Denmark and Serbia also offer a year's maternity leave with 100 per cent pay.
It gets complicated in Denmark. New moms in Denmark really get 18 weeks of maternity leave: four weeks before the birth and 14 weeks after, all at full pay. During the 14-week period, the father can also take two consecutive weeks off. From that point on, parents can split the 32 additional weeks of leave however they see fit. They can extend the leave for another 14 weeks if the child or parent gets sick. By law, the government covers 52 weeks of pay, though not always at the full salary.
Serbian mothers can take 20 weeks of fully paid leave after giving birth. After that, they get an additional full year of leave, but compensation diminishes over time. They receive 100 per cent pay for the first 26 weeks, 60 per cent for weeks 27-39, and 30 per cent for weeks 40-52. Fathers get one week of fully paid leave.
New parents in Sweden are entitled to 480 days of leave at 80 per cent of their normal pay. That's on top of the 18 weeks reserved just for mothers, after which the parents can split up the time however they choose. Sweden is unique in that dads also get 90 paid paternity days reserved just for them. The idea is to promote bonding between father and child during a time when moms are getting most of the attention.
In Lithuania, moms get 18 weeks of fully paid leave, new fathers get four weeks, and together the parents get an additional 156 weeks to share. For the shared portion, the parents can decide whether to have it paid out at 100 per cent for the first 52 weeks (until the child is turns one) or 70 per cent for the first 104 weeks (until the child is two years old). The remaining weeks are unpaid.
It can all get quite complicated what with maternity leave, paternity leave, length of each, paid leave, paid leave for some time, unpaid leave, eligibility (time worked for a company) and so on.
The point is that all developed countries, except the USA, have recognised that maternity leave (and paternity leave) has definite advantages and have taken the decision to give women time off to recover from pregnancy and birth.
So not surprisingly the American Academy of Pediatrics, the leading US pediatricians' organisation and a conservative organisation if there was ever one, is now calling on Congress to create a nationwide social insurance programme that enables eligible workers to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave to care for themselves or a family member.
What are the advantages of maternal leave? First it increases the liklihood of babies getting regular early childhood checkups and all their immunizations. We all tend to forget the polio epidemics of the mid-fifties and seventies, the rubella outbreaks in the sixties, the measles deaths in the eighties and so on. The viruses that cause these diseases have not gone away, they are all around us, at this very moment, waiting for more people to stop immunizing their children.
Second, there is very strong evidence that family leave decreases maternal depression. This is key, because quite apart from decreasing misery and saving lives, maternal depression prevents mother-infant bonding and has negative effects on a child's cognitive, social and emotional development which translates into future socio-economic (delinquency; criminality; untrained workers etc), problems which society then has to sort out at enormous expense. As others have pointed out, crime has cost T&T over $30 billion between 2005 and 2015.
Maternal leave increases breastfeeding rates. Breastfeeding has many known positive effects which I won't go into here except to point out that it decreases the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and hypertension, which cost us $40 billion between 2005 and 2016.
Maternal leave equals healthier children equals a healthier society.
It's also clear that there is no cutoff for the benefits of maternal leave. Research shows that the longer maternal leave is, the more powerful the advantages. Hence those countries giving up to one year and even more at lesser pay.