Reading on the Run: Articles of Interest to Working Moms (The Business Case for Paid Leave)

Successful working women keep track of important matters in the news. However, we are not one-dimensional. Some of us also want to keep up with celebrity gossip and fashion news too. Even in the era of the Internet and 24 hour news shows and E!, it can be challenging to keep up with everything.

Fortunately for you, I make it my job to keep up on articles of interest and resources to working moms and when I find notable ones, I share them with you. Below are two that sparked my interest. They each focus on the topic of paid leave. Recently, I attended an event where I was able to discuss this topic with a mom who share my passion for it.

This week I attended a preliminary event for “The Mom Con” that is coming to Pittsburgh this November.  The Mom Con is a conference devoted to supporting mothers. At the event, I became involved in conversation with my new friend, Nadine Champsi, MD from The Pittsburgh Mommy Blog about the importance of creating a nationwide policy that provides mandatory paid maternity leave. It was nice to speak with a smart woman about an issue that is near and dear to me.

Articles of Interest to Working Moms

The articles below illustrate that there is a business case, a moral case, and a political case to be made for offering paid leave to mothers. The one entitled, "Paid Leave Encourages Female Employees to Stay" highlights that paid leave can decrease the attrition of female employees, increase retention and decrease human resources costs. Indeed, when Google expanded its maternity leave to five months fully paid from three months partly paid attrition decreased by 50 percent It shows that offering paid leave isn't "generous".  Rather, it is the right thing to do because it makes sound business sense.

So, let’s reframe the issue and begin talking about how Corporate America can win by offering paid leave instead of why women need it.

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Hopefully, the right people begin to care about this issue, write to their senators and congressmen, and advocate to make this policy a reality. And by the right people, I mean you, me and those we know and love. (If you're looking for support, 67% of those who responded to a survey on Debate.org are in favor of paid leave.  Just so you know. See Should paid vacation time and family/maternity leave be mandatory?)   

National Partnership for Women and Families, Paid Leave,  

[O]nly 12 percent of workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employers, and fewer than 40 percent have access to personal medical leave through employer-provided short-term disability insurance.

Paid leave encourages female employees to stay 

[O]ther developed nations adopted a variety of policies to help working parents, such as paid family leave, subsidized child care and support for part-time work. The United States, meanwhile, did very little, which is why it no longer leads European countries in female labor force participation.