Although a study covered in Culture Digest Jan. 10 said U.S. employers are accommodating families more, a study released by Harvard and McGill University researchers Feb. 1 says the United States lags behind nearly all wealthy nations in providing family oriented workplace policies.
“More countries are providing the workplace protections that millions of Americans can only dream of,” Jody Heymann, the study’s lead author and founder of the Harvard-based Project on Global Working Families, said. “The U.S. has been a proud leader in adopting laws that provide for equal opportunity in the workplace, but our work/family protections are among the worst. It’s time for change.”
Researchers studied 173 countries and found that 168 guarantee paid maternity leave, with 98 of them providing 14 or more weeks of paid leave.
The United States does not require paid leave for mothers, putting it on a list with Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea as the only countries studied that don’t provide paid maternity leave.
The study found that at least 134 countries have laws that fix the maximum length of the work week, while the United States does not have a maximum work week length or a limit on mandatory overtime per week.
At least 126 countries require employers to provide a day of rest each week for workers, but the United States does not. And 137 countries require employers to provide paid annual leave, while the U.S. does not, according to a news release from McGill University.
At least 145 countries provide paid sick days for short- or long-term illnesses, with 127 providing a week or more annually, the study found.
The U.S. provides unpaid leave only for serious illnesses through the Family & Medical Leave Act, which does not cover all workers, and has no federal law providing for paid sick days.
Filed under: Family
