I recognize how bad it is in so many areas, but I don’t have the experience of parental leave being non existent, which is why I’m trying to get others opinions and experiences. Like yes, it’s not mandated, and because of that it’s shorter than in countries that do mandate longer leave, but saying it’s worse than other countries is very different than saying it doesn’t exist. Unless we’re saying a lack of mandate anyway. I’d love to see it be a year-long requirement. Not even an option, else people will be pressured by being asked if they really need that much time, or veiled threats of missing out on promotions or raises because they took their time.
I’m not trying to defend the current system either, though it seems I’m being taken that way. I’m just actually curious how many people actually get absolutely no parental leave.
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But it literally doesn’t exist.
This is about mandatory parental leave, because we know labour protection is necessary, because even with it, we hardly get to that level.
How can you pretend your personal experience has anything to do with this? It’s like someone pointing out extremely high cancer rates linked to something in my country and I go “well I don’t have cancer so it can’t be that bad.”
invertedspear@lemm.ee 2 months ago
No one ever says “mandatory” when discussing this though, which is why I’ve been a bit confused about the issue. Would have saved me a lot of confusion.
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
You’re not confused, you’re being obtuse.
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No? Or could it be that once again, you’re extrapolating from your biased personal experiences?
Why doesn’t the US have mandated paid maternity leave?
Mandatory for it to be provided.
It is mandated for the employer to give paid parental leave.
The US does not have this mandate.
invertedspear@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The original article doesn’t mention mandatory, nor does most anyone commenting on social media platforms say mandatory. The original article goes out of its way to mention exception for specific federal government jobs, but never mentions mandatory. They just say that there’s no parental leave in the US except for some fed jobs. In fact, rarely do people specify paid as you have. Which makes me second guess a few former employers as to if it was paid or not. I know for sure it was paid leave at the vast majority of my previous employers
The article you linked (thanks for that, good information in there) says 80% of employers don’t offer leave, which seems crazy because even my first jobs for part time minimum wage offered paid leave for full-time employees. Possibly because I worked for a big chain, maybe it’s the small businesses that don’t offer leave, but is 80% of the US labor force working for small businesses or as contract/gig jobs? Or is this another case of major employers not allowing people to work full time to avoid having to provide them benefits?
Regardless, it’s clear that the right move is mandatory paid parental leave. I know anything companies provide that isn’t legally required can be canceled at a whim.