Share your story: parental leave

 The US has the distinction of being only one of only a handful countries without legally guaranteed paid parental leave. A study of 190 countries shows that 177 have legal guarantees for paid parental leave, including 101 with 14 or more weeks of pay. Just a few lack any paid parental leave under law, including Australia, Swaziland, the United States, and Papua New Guinea. Starting in 2011, Australia will offer 18 weeks of paid parental leave.

In the US, it is largely up to employers to decide whether to offer paid parental leave. Just a few states have laws on this, and the Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees only unpaid leave. The vast majority of US workers do not have this benefit.

Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental human rights group, is looking for parents to interview about the impact of the lack of paid parental leave in the United States. The interviews will cover a range of topics, including the impact of the lack of paid leave on child health (e.g., getting immunizations, essential health care, and dealing with health problems from pre-term births), establishing or continuing breastfeeding, recovering from childbirth, family finances, and careers. Interviews will be by phone or in person and last about 30 minutes. They will use these stories for a report and related advocacy that will spotlight the stories of individual parents (using only pseudonyms), discuss international legal standards, and make recommendations for state and federal policy options.

Do you have a personal story to share about the lack of legally guaranteed paid parental leave? Do you work in an organization that could put HRW in touch with parents? Please contact Janet Walsh at walshj [at] hrw [dot] org if you do, or to offer any feedback on this project.

To learn more about Human Rights Watch, visit http://www.hrw.org.