Marissa Mayer's Maternity Policy Still Isn't Up to Silicon Valley's Gold Standard

Marissa Mayer's Maternity Policy Still Isn't Up to Silicon Valley's Gold Standard

Anti-feminist Marissa Mayer has improved Yahoo's maternity and paternity leave policy, which would delight all those pro-family people who hated on Mayer's work-from-home ban... if only Yahoo's new plan for new parents was as good as the HR strategies at Google and Facebook. Working moms and dads at Yahoo now both can take up as much as eight weeks of paid leave — and new mothers get an additional eight weeks after the child is born, report NBC Bay Area's Lisa Fernandez and Jon Schuppe. Yahoo also plans to give $500 in baby spending money to new parents who have worked at the company for five years or longer.

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While that doubles the paid time off for procreating Yahoo employees, it still lags behind both Google and Facebook — major competitors for the tech talent Mayer is hoping to lure with better perks. Google gives new moms 22 weeks of paid maternity leave; Facebook offers four months of paid leave to both moms and dads, according to the New York Times. Both policies cover same sex-couples, and Facebook gives $4,000 of that "baby cash" for each child. Mayer's new plan does play some catch-up, of course: She bests here former employer with Yahoo's eight weeks off for new dads, compared to Google's seven weeks. And Microsoft only provides up to 10 weeks of paid leave to women who have just given birth. 

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To Mayer's credit, despite failing to keep pace with the generous programs in Silicon Valley, Yahoo's benefits are still much better than most American companies. The Family and Medical Leave Act merely stipulates 17 weeks of unpaid leave. The New York Times put together a chart of how many major American corporations deal with family planning — HP offers six paid weeks; General Electric only offers two.