United States | Looking after baby

America is the only rich country without a law on paid leave for new parents

Support for changing this is growing in both parties

|DALLAS AND SAN FRANCISCO

THE PRESIDENT’S Commission on the Status of Women was unequivocal in its recommendation: “Paid maternity leave or comparable insurance benefits should be provided for women workers.” That conclusion was reached in 1963, when John Kennedy was president, but America still has no federal policy in place to guarantee working mothers or fathers paid time off to care for their new babies. It is one of only two countries in the world, along with Papua New Guinea, that have no statutory national policy of paid maternity leave. The average member of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, offers new mothers 18 weeks of paid leave.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Looking after baby”

The next 50 years in space

From the July 20th 2019 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
An actor plays a harb in the theatre production 'David' at Sight & Sound theatre in Branson, Missouri.

What a Christian theatre town can teach Trump’s Kennedy Centre

Anti-woke entertainment has draws and drawbacks

 The tattoed hand of a woman reaches for a dose of methadone.

Why America has not passed a law to treat addiction better

Methadone can help addicts. But many are loth to make it more easily available


Donald Trump taking the gavel from the hand of a judge.

Donald Trump is testing more than America’s Constitution

The country’s very idea of itself is under stress


Cambridge yimbies

The home of Harvard and MIT embraces yimby-ism

The American and Russian right are aligning

MAGA men are warming to anti-liberal ideas emanating from Moscow

Did Donald Trump wilfully defy a court order?

The administration’s rushed deportation of alleged gang members seems to have crossed a line