What If Companies Only Did Business With Other Companies That Offer Paid Family Leave?

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Ivanka Trump, wearing a dress from her own clothing line, takes the stage at the Republican National Convention. (Photo: Getty Images)

News broke today that G-III Apparel Group (with whom Ivanka Trump contracts to produce her namesake line of clothing) does not offer its employees paid parental leave — an especially biting bit of irony since Ivanka Trump made paid family leave and women-friendly labor policies the cornerstone of the speech she delivered at the Republican National Convention. Introducing her father, Republican nominee Donald Trump, Ivanka insisted that her father was the candidate who would bring about reforms to workplace policies so women would no longer be penalized for their sex or parenting status but instead would be allowed to “thrive.”

In light of the current debate on paid family leave, and especially within the context of the upcoming presidential election, one New York-based organization has made a modest proposal of its own: The Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York has announced that it will only accept and review grant applications from organizations that offer paid parental leave, including a minimum of four weeks paid leave at full salary for new mothers.

We asked Sarah Jane Glynn, the Women’s Economic Policy director at the Center for American Progress, what it might mean if such a model were employed by not just one foundation but all U.S. businesses. Would American workers benefit if for-profit companies employed a similar no-paid-leave, no-business model?

“It’s a fascinating thought experiment,” Glynn tells Yahoo Style. “But I’m of two minds, to be frank. On the one hand, this would be amazing. But in the global phenomenon, it would really hurt American businesses — and be amazing for everyone else on the planet.”

Glynn explains that the vast majority of other countries, and every other advanced economy, offers paid family leave as a government benefit; in none of these economies are businesses themselves expected to provide paid leave to their employees 100 percent on their own. The U.S., by comparison, is the only country in which it’s up to employers to fully and independently fund any kind of paid leave offered to their employees.

That’s why Glynn says, “Paid family leave is a fundamental, basic labor right to which all people should have access.” It shouldn’t be up to businesses alone to provide the benefit, she adds. “As a society, we need to provide that. Leaving it fully up to the market is not the best mindset to understand this issue.”

Especially because, just as the life circumstances that might require someone to take leave from work — and get paid for that time — are out of an individual’s control, there are also circumstances that might prohibit a business from being able to provide paid family leave to its employees, even if it might want to.

“This is a large-scale societal issue,” says Glynn. “Everyone needs benefits for when people can’t work, for whatever reason, whether because someone has had a baby or whether someone is trying to take care of their mom who is really ill.” The thinking behind not doing businesses with companies that don’t provide paid family leave “makes sense as a model, but my concern is that if this is only expected of employers to do, there will always be some companies that, for whatever reason, have a really hard time being able to do so,” she adds. “There are lots of factors that make it hard for businesses [to be able to provide paid family leave] on their own that have nothing to do with selfishness or greed or not wanting to do the right thing.”

Furthermore, Glynn explains, countries that do make paid family leave available only through an employer mandate often end up seeing widespread employment discrimination as a result.

“If you’re expecting businesses to take [paid family leave] on 100 percent themselves — if you’re just looking at maternity leave, for example, it can make people reticent to hire women,” points out Glynn. “It makes hiring young women more expensive if a company is expected to be paying maternity leave 100 percent themselves.”

Which is why Glynn feels that paid leave is absolutely essential, but it needs to be addressed outside of the private sector — namely, with the federal government’s involvement.

As any parent knows, having a baby is expensive. But while parents need to be able to provide for their children financially, they also need to take care of themselves — particularly after going through childbirth — while caring for their children. And all parents, whether biological or adoptive, need the time to adjust to the lack of sleep and round-the-clock care a new baby requires. Not to mention that early bonding is essential for both parent and child.

Given all these factors, unpaid leave just doesn’t cut it.

Glynn notes that the signing of the Federal Medical Family Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton showed a recognition of the reality that people need time off from work for a variety of life circumstances throughout their working lives and that they shouldn’t be punished for this. But when that time off isn’t paid — and offers no guarantee of pay — “you end up with a situation where 1 in 4 working women with a baby takes off two weeks or less because they can’t afford unpaid leave,” Glynn says. “Baby stuff is not cheap, and overnight your income drops to zero? That doesn’t work for most people.”

She adds: “We talk about the economy like it’s this really complicated, weird thing that’s impossible to get your arms around to understand. But in essence, me spending money pays other people’s salaries, which is then spent on goods and services, and that pays other people’s salaries. When people don’t have money, that’s bad for everyone. If new parents don’t have money to spend, that’s a drag on our economy overall. If we want to have a healthy, thriving global economy, we need paid family leave.”

The economic benefits don’t end there. Glynn notes that when people have access to paid family leave, they are less likely to need to rely on public benefits, especially when it comes to offering wage replacement for new parents taking leave. “It is much cheaper to make sure that people can stay above the poverty line instead of forcing them into situations where they must rely on public benefits,” she says.

And paid parental leave is better for women’s careers and future earning potential. When people have access to paid parental leave, they are more likely to go back to work, Glynn explains. When people are fired from jobs when they need time off and don’t qualify for FMLA, or when they leave jobs because they don’t have paid leave to begin with, they often are out of the workforce for longer spells of time and typically re-enter the workforce at lower salaries than they were earning before they left. As a result, they end up experiencing depressed future wages and, ultimately, less retirement security.

While there are multiple social, psychological, and health benefits to paid parental leave — for both parents and children — the economic effect of not having access to paid leave can also have a lifelong effect on parents. So paid leave doesn’t just translate into healthier kids but a healthier economy for those children to grow up in and one day contribute to.

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