Post-election thoughts

I have more updating to do from last weekend + the one just past, but I wanted to mention how fabulous -- and long-overdue -- that the 2nd person in line to the presidency will be a woman, not to mention, mother of FIVE (which qualifies her for any number of high-ranking leadership roles)!!

Some extremely pertinent facts that should be more commonly known if we're interested in furthering more equal representation in the U.S.:

-- 163 countries around the world offer guaranteed paid leave to women in connection with childbirth. The U.S. does not.

-- The only other industrialized country which does not have paid maternity or parental leave for women, Australia, guarantees a full year of unpaid leave to all women in the country. In contrast, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in the U.S. provides only 12 weeks of unpaid leave to approximately half of mothers in the U.S. and nothing for the remainder.

-- 45 countries ensure that fathers either receive paid paternity leave or have a right to paid parental leave. The United States guarantees fathers neither paid paternity nor paid parental leave.

-- At least 76 countries protect working women’s right to breastfeed; the U.S. does not, in spite of the fact that breastfeeding has been shown to reduce infant mortality several-fold. In fact, nearly two-thirds of these countries protect breastfeeding for 15 months or longer. Nearly nine out of ten protect this right for at least a year.

-- At least 96 countries around the world in all geographic regions and at all economic levels mandate paid annual leave. The U.S. does not require employers to provide paid annual leave.

-- At least 37 countries have policies guaranteeing parents some type of paid leave specifically for when their children are ill. Of these countries, two-thirds guarantee more than a week of paid leave, and more than one-third guarantee 11 or more days.

-- 139 countries provide paid leave for short- or long-term illnesses, with 117 providing a week or more annually. The U.S. provides only unpaid leave for serious illnesses through the FMLA, which does not cover all workers.

-- 40 countries have government-mandated evening and night wage premiums. The U.S. does not.

-- At least 98 countries require employers to provide a mandatory day of rest: a period of at least 24 hours off each week. The U.S. does not guarantee workers this weekly break.

-- At least 84 countries have laws that fix the maximum length of the work week. The U.S. does not have a maximum length of the work week or a limit on mandatory overtime per week.

-- 42 countries guarantee leave for major family events; in 37 of these countries, the leave is paid.

From the Harvard School of Public Health's Work, Family and Equity Index