Gender Equity Requires a Strong Paid Leave Program

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, a major new report confirms what our own experiences and common sense tell us: Women’s equality depends on access to paid leave that is affordable, universal, and substantive.

I recently interviewed the author of that report, Dr. Jody Heymann (the “Dr.” is both MD and PhD). Heymann is Dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and one of the leading experts on paid leave. She led a team of a dozen people for one year reviewing 5,500 studies and talking to a number of medical experts.

“We wanted to learn what is essential,” she told me, “what is too little to make a difference, what is affordable, what it takes to make it possible for individuals to meet their needs when they’re sick or a family member’s needs. There’s a lot of rhetoric—we wanted to pull together the best medical research and evidence.”

Her team examined evidence across the 3 states in the U.S. and the 35 nations in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose members are largely high-income countries) that have had paid leave programs in place. What was most striking, Heymann said, is that paid family and medical leave “is really doable” and she pointed to the level of economic growth in these comparator countries: “They do not have higher unemployment.” She was also struck by how solid the evidence is on a number of the issues, such as including all companies regardless of size, and how well other countries cover the self-employed.

Among the key findings: the need for adequate wage replacement and sufficient number of weeks for a comprehensive policy that includes care of self and a seriously ill loved one, as well as care for a new child.

The level of wage replacement has to be high enough “to ensure taking leave to care for a new child or sick family member or one’s own health does not land an individual or household in poverty—and to ensure men and women will take leave equally,” Heymann said. “Study after study shows if the wage replacement rate is too low, the lower earner is the one who will take the leave.” Given continuing gender disparity in wages, “that means the burden disproportionately falls on women.” She recommends a rate of at least 80% of a worker’s regular wages.

The leave also has to last a minimum of 3 months. “The evidence is strong that 6 months would be better,” Heymann pointed out. “Going from 3 months to 6 months improves economic outcomes, and continues to improve health outcomes, including for cancer, heart disease and diabetes, the three leading causes of death in the U.S. The only OECD country as low as 12 weeks for paid maternity leave is Mexico. Everyone else is 14 weeks or more.” She noted that one positive outcome from having at least 3 months of leave per parent is the impact on early child development and relieving the high cost and low availability of infant care.

In regard to U.S. lawmakers’ hesitance to offer longer leaves, I asked her about the argument that something is better than nothing. Heymann cited the example of the FMLA, which offers unpaid leave to workers in workplaces of 50 or more employees, passed into law 25 years ago. “It was tremendously important, has benefited millions. But it has unequal uptake, very little by low-income individuals, and it hasn’t helped with gender equity. I hope we would learn that we have got to put in enough now to meet health needs and family care needs.”

Heymann was concerned about any proposal that would allow individuals or companies to opt out. “That could lead to all sorts of disparities,” she said. “We need to be concerned whether this would place a disproportionate burden on women more than men. We also have to worry that men [would opt out and] not be covered during sick leave. And whether low-income workers feel they can least afford it, so they’d have less coverage.”

The good news is that we don’t need to settle for proposals that are unsatisfactory and unworkable. May the words of Dr. Jody Heymann reverberate on this International Women’s Day: “We can do this. Everyone else does now.”

by Ellen Bravo, co-director of Family Values @ Work