Paternity Leave in America

Running Head: PATERNITY LEAVE IN AMERICA
PATERNITY LEAVE IN AMERICA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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PATERNITY LEAVE IN AMERICA
Paternity leave refers to fathers’ right to take leaves in order to take care of the new-
borns. Paternity leave is also applicable to a man who has adopted a child. Experts consider
paternity leave an essential element of gender-balanced parenting. Global Organisation for
Maternal and Child Health argues that European countries have introduced more flexible
policies than America regarding paternity leaves so that men get the opportunity to spend
quality time with their new-borns, form the tender bonding of love, share the joy as well as
the responsibilities of becoming parent with their wives, and recreate their own childhood
again. This argumentative essay aims to compare paternity and maternity leaves provided by
America and other countries and establish the facts regarding the benefits of paternity leave.
According to the child healthcare experts, among all the developed countries, US is
the only one country, where most of the organisation do not grant any paternity or maternity
leaves or paid childcare leaves after the baby is born. The US government has defined such
leaves as “new national entitlement” to be avoided and also as “a burden on small business
operators” and mentioned that the decisions regarding maternity leaves should be “left to the
employer, not the government.” This is the reason why most of the companies are reluctant to
provide paid paternity or maternity leaves (washingtonpost, 2019).
Blofield and Franzoni (2018) argue that the difference in the term of leaves that men
and women get can be analysed with the statistical data. A survey conducted in the year 2016
revealed that most of the women in US have to work during their pregnancy with the risks of
miscarriages. Women had to start their work again within the 2 weeks of the birth of the
child, and this leave was also an unpaid leave. The situation was worse in case of paternity
leaves, men did not get any kind of paternity leave, even if they applied for leaves during the
pregnancy of their partners it would be unpaid and they has to suffer from the insecurity of
losing their jobs..

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PATERNITY LEAVE IN AMERICA
Engster and Stensöta (2018) argue that, after the constant protests by working women
and considering the importance of a gender balanced childcare, the government has amended
the laws regarding paternity as well as maternity leaves. The new Family and Medical Leave
Act (FMLA) act allows both the parents a leave for taking care of new-born babies or adopted
children. Such amendment is indicative of the eradication of the gender bias attitude of the
government. It is true that, American government has realised the need for a gender-balanced
method of childcare, but, only a leave of 12 weeks is allowed. Moreover, it is an unpaid leave. In
addition, the law covers those who are employed in an organisation consisting of 50 employees,
for at least 1 year. In this case, working hours should be 25 hours per week. This is the reason why
only 90 million Americans are covered under the law. The rest 41% who are employed for a term
less than 1-year paternity leave even if their wives are pregnant or they have adopted a baby.
Again, the Family Leave Act allows a parental leave of 6 weeks, and the amount of the salary paid
during the leave is 55%, but, this is funded by the employees themselves. This shows the ignorant
and discriminatory attitude of the government towards the issues of parental leaves.
According to the Global Organisation for Maternal and Child Health America is
lagged behind the European countries, in terms of providing fathers their right to get a
paternity leave. In Finland, fathers are granted a leave of 8 weeks, which is paid too. In fact,
Finish parents are also allowed to take a partial care leave after their child completes 3 years.
This leave will be continued until the child is promoted to the second grade. Norway has
made a flexible as well as generous leave system by allowing fathers a leave between 0 and
10 weeks of the birth of their babies (Business Insider, 2019). In fact, both the parent will get
a leave of 46 weeks in aggregate, with a full paid salary, or, they may extend the leave upto
56 weeks with a payment of 80% of their salary. Fathers in Hungary get a leave of 1 week,
which is full paid too (Business Insider, 2019). In addition, they also get a leave of 156
weeks, only after the mothers of a new-borns have taken a maternity leave of 24 weeks