BS: maternity leave - benefits

Subject: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 07:44 PM

just thinking about the recent breastfeeding thread, and reading an article about the added benefits of Canada's extended maternity leave

- ie more women are breastfeeding longer with increased health benefits for the babies, made me wonder what kind of maternity leave there in other places..
In Canada it was recently increased to a year from 6 months. I know in the Czech Republic it is 3 years. In France I think it is 5years.
I dont know if there is any in the US..

OF course only a generation or so ago we could have a one income family with one parent at home but that seems to be much more difficult with the cost of living these days.

The Canadian Govt recently cancelled a national daycare program (that was in the works) opting instead to give money to parents directly.
(Although strictly speaking its peanuts- maybe enough for one day a week of daycare- if you can find it)
One would think that an increased mat. leave for possibly 3 years would have added benefits of allowing children to spend the early formative years at home.. and take the pressure off the daycare system.

Any thoughts on this, and what are the maternity benefits where you are.?

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Becca72
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 08:00 PM

In the US it is usually 6 to 8 weeks. 12 weeks if you have a C section

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 08:39 PM

In the US, in most cases, it is a matter of using other paid-time-off benefits (sick leave, vacation time, personal days, etc) or unpaid absence rather than having a special, paid, maternity leave program. It is generally for what used to be called "confinement and recovery". Under the Federal leave system, which is the one I'm pretty familiar with, one can get up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, in addition to accrued paid leave, with a guarantee of return to the same job. This can be available to the father as well as the mother, but there are some strings attached.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Alice
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 12:02 AM

I had a C section and had to go back to work 2 weeks later.

Subject: RE: BS: - benefits
From: Barry Finn
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 02:29 AM

Sadly the US is far behind most of the other 1st & 2nd world nations.
Not much here to compare with when it comes to most European countries.

"In the US it is usually 6 to 8 weeks. 12 weeks if you have a C section"

That's if you're lucky enough to be covered! I don't believe that there is any Federally mandated "maternity leave" on the books that covers everyone. I'd love to be proven wrong.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 03:17 AM

In the UK maternity leave is 9 months. A mother is entitled to 9 months statutory maternity pay which is about £108 per week. If the mother is working then the company may well have some sort of maternity policy paying all or part of the mothers salary for up to 6 months if the mother has worked for the company for 26 weeks or more before they fell pregnant.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 04:16 AM

Also in the UK, each company and local authority have different policies, there is no uniformity across the workforce.

For instance - if you and your partner are both employed in my local authority (Newham Council), your partner is entitled to take any maternity leave that you do not take, which consists of the statutory 9 months made up to full pay, a further 3 months on half pay and the option of another 6 months on no pay, but guaranteed return to work. So if the mother earns the greater amount, she can return to work after 6 weeks and the partner take the remaining time off. Makes for a few raised eyebrows the first time you see a male name under 'maternity leave'...

Firms not in the public sector have different rules. When Limpit was born, Manitas was allowed 3 days paternity leave, and he was called at home every day of it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Cats
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 05:11 AM

The rules around Maternity in Uk have just changed. All pregnant employees, regardles of length of service will be entitled to 52 weeks ordinary maternity leave. Depending on how long you have worked for your employer depends on how much pay you are now entitled to and whether it is just standard maternity pay of £108 per week, or full or part pay from your own salary. You are now not permitted to return to work for 2 weeks after the bay is born as it constitues Health and Safety risk. I did my casework training on this last Friday!

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Rog Peek
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 05:44 AM

"OF course only a generation or so ago we could have a one income family with one parent at home but that seems to be much more difficult with the cost of living these days."

I do not subscribe to this view, I believe it is priorities that have changed.

My parents were much worse off than we were during the time children were growing up, but their priorities were different. In the fifties, my mother had to work, not for luxuries, but to make ends meet. However, not until I started school, and then only part time.

The relative cost of clothing, was much higher then than it is now, and yet I always went to school neatly dressed in full school uniform because it was a priority. These days school uniform is often described as too expensive, and yet children will turn up to school in very expensive trainers and the like. Likewise with holidays, how many parents will take their children out of school to avoid paying premium holiday rates on the grounds that it's the only way they can afford it. It would never have entered my parents' heads to take me on holiday during term time, If we couldn't afford, then we didn't go.

No, I do not believe that it is any more difficult to meet the needs of the cost of living now, than it was in my parents' time, on the contrary, they had it much harder. What we have these days is a wish to have everything, and I'm afraid when it comes to priorities, chidren's well being, particularly moral and emotional and educational are not always as high a priority as it was for my parents.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Grab
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 07:19 AM

Thankfully, the UK government is now normalising maternity and paternity arrangements to remove at least some of the endemic discrimination against men looking after children. Can't do anything about society (sitcoms are *still* being made that consider a man looking after kids as comedy material), but at least they're doing something about the financial discrimination against men.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 08:30 AM

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) will provide for up to six weeks unpaid leave for childbirth or adoption for both men and women. About the only good thing about it is that the employer must continue to provide your health insurance during that time, although you may have to pay the money back if you elect not to return to work. Your position, or and "equivalent" one, must also be retained for you. You can opt to use whatever other paid leave you have before going on FMLA.

The time you can take off does not carry over and resets annually, on either January 1 or one year from the day you started using FMLA. You can also use it in fits and starts during the year.

Most people try to avoid FMLA use, but sometimes it's the only choice.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Scoville
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 11:18 AM

No, I do not believe that it is any more difficult to meet the needs of the cost of living now, than it was in my parents' time, on the contrary, they had it much harder.

I agree with you on the clothing bit but there are a lot of expenses now that were not around even when I was a kid in the Eighties, and some things have gotten disproportionately more expensive. Most things do not convert directly from past costs to present costs.

I'm amazed when I look at old hospital tabs here at work (medical school library assitant) and see that surgery and a week's hospital stay ran up a bill of $450 in 1932. Granted, people made less, but $450 in 1932 dollars does not translate into what that would cost today. Sure, we have much better technology than we did in 1932, but we sure do pay for it. My mother's anti-rejection medications, even with excellent insurance (my parents are lucky to have good coverage), cost a couple of hundred dollars a month. Forty years ago, she would simply have died and it wouldn't be an issue.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 12:57 PM

Well, a plumber made $1.20 an hour in 1935, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If a week in the hospital cost $450 then, that would be 375 hours of work. Today (and probably then) this is very locality based, but one web site gives the current wage for a fully-qualified plumber as $25-$40 per hour. At today's wage, using a mid-line figure, that 375 hours would be about $12,150 (375 x $32.50). Hospital costs are also very regional (but exorbitant everywhere)-one study gives a range from $1,100/day to $2,500, depending upon the level of care (in 2002, in Michigan). Again using a median figure ($1800), that comes out to $12,600 for a 7-day period.

Lots of statistical assumptions here, but it would appear that (at least for the hypothetical plumber) the cost of a week in the hospital really hasn't changed much if looked at in work-units.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 01:00 PM

I take your point Rog, my parents actually both worked (this is back in the 60s in Czechoslovakia) and in fact so did my grandparents both because they had to (my dad had no shoes the first few weeks of school)
they had it much tougher

Strictly speaking while many costs have gone down (ie. food - now is a much smaller percentage of income than it was a one or two generations ago, and clothing etc..) the price of housing and real estate has increased much more than wages (in Canada ). My wife grew up in a single income household and while her mom - made do with little, sewed their own clothes etc, few holidays etc - it was always great for the kids to come home and have someone there.

Historically this was the case, in the 50s and 60s most Canadian and US households were single income, now they are two income and while we have it better than previous generations, that second income is not just about luxury.

Of course the maternity benefits are usually only a portion of the previous income - (paid for by Employment insurance- which is paid by Employer and Employee payroll deductions)..

I understand there is a some extra work for the employer, ie. having to find a replacement employee (although it is easier to find a replacement for a year -than for 6months) and still hold the position available. But I run a small company with less than 10 employees and it was never really a big issue..

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 01:17 PM

"I'm amazed when I look at old hospital tabs here at work (medical school library assitant) and see that surgery and a week's hospital stay ran up a bill of $450 in 1932. Granted, people made less, but $450 in 1932 dollars does not translate into what that would cost today. Sure, we have much better technology than we did in 1932, but we sure do pay for it." Scoville

Plumbing is a specialised trade and pays proportionately. In 1937 my parents relocated to Oregon from North Dakota. My father had been a farmer all his life and went to work for a dairy farmer in Oregon.

He was paid $25 a MONTH, all the milk his family could use, one hog and one beef a year and a small house on two acres where they planted a large garden. (On the side he trained and traded and sold horses.)

Let's say that $450 would have been the bottom line cost of surgery and a hospital stay- that would have been more than a third of their annual income.

After 4 or 5 years there, he went to work in a grain mill- for $35 a WEEK with overtime available on top of that. In 1942 my parents bought a 118 acre farm for $9000.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 01:39 PM

in 1972 my parents bought a house in Winnipeg for $13,000.
WHich is what my father made that year.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: concertina ceol
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 01:47 PM

I would have thought the biggest benefit is that you have a child - not everyone is so fortunate to be in that situation.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Wolfgang
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 10:39 AM

There are two completely different regulations in Germany:
(1) Maternity leave of 14 weeks that only the mother can benefit from (with full wages)
(2) Parent time (leave) of up to 3 years (age of child) which can be taken by any of the two parents or can be split up between them at their own will (I took two of the three years and my wife took one, BTW). During this time the parent on leave is not paid anything (they are discussing to change that) but has the right to return to his or her old job without any disadvantages.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:40 AM

Parental Leave law, Australia

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: GUEST,Scoville at Dad's
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 11:36 PM

After 4 or 5 years there, he went to work in a grain mill- for $35 a WEEK with overtime available on top of that. In 1942 my parents bought a 118 acre farm for $9000.

And the bill in question was an unusually high hospital bill. Many of them did not make triple digits even for fairly serious ailments or injuries.

The same thing today, if I didn't have insurance, would probably wipe out my year's salary if not more.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Sooz
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 04:02 AM

I'm fully in agreement with Rog Peek on this one. For too many people, children are a fashion accessory and have to fit in with all of their other material desires.
I gave up working for seven years to be a full time Mum and we were very short of money. We didn't even consider foreign holidays or new cars. They came years later.
The only hint of regret comes now as I approach retirement on a much smaller pension than I would have had if I'd kept on working!

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Rog Peek
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 04:39 AM

I bet you wouldn't swap it though for the time you spent with your children.

Subject: RE: BS: maternity leave - benefits
From: Sooz
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 06:44 AM

I still fancy a whole day playing with lego!