scholarly journals Paid Family Leave to Strengthen the STEM Workforce

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Alex Hsain ◽  
Ryan Tam ◽  
Ishita Kamboj ◽  
Hanna Berman ◽  
Ryan Dudek
Keyword(s):  
Parental Leave ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Family Leave ◽  
Stem Leave ◽  
Paid Family Leave ◽  
The Family ◽  
Paid Parental Leave ◽  
And Mathematics

In the United States many women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) leave their careers after becoming a parent. Attrition is simultaneously occurring with workforce shortages in STEM with two million jobs potentially unfilled by 2025. While there has been an increase in STEM recruitment of women over recent decades, policies aimed at decreasing departure of women in STEM have not been prioritized. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) guarantees workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave, but has not shown to increase workforce attachment of new mothers. Instead, studies suggest that short durations of paid leave (6-12 weeks) increase workforce attachment. Medical consensus suggests that a leave of 26 weeks is necessary for maternal health and a leave of 40 weeks is optimal for infant well-being. Coupled with recently introduced paid parental leave legislation in Congress, we recommend timely action to decrease the departure of women from the workforce and to strengthen gender equality in STEM. We recommend instituting 12 weeks of federal paid family leave (PFL) under the recently introduced national family leave insurance program in the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act; S. 463/H.R. 1185).

scholarly journals Paid family leave on local television news in the United States: Setting the agenda for policy reform.

2021 ◽  
pp. 100821
Author(s):  
Margaret Tait ◽  
Colleen Bogucki ◽  
Laura Baum ◽  
Erika Franklin Fowler ◽  
Jeff Niederdeppe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Television News ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Leave ◽  
Local Television ◽  
Paid Family Leave ◽  
Local Television News

scholarly journals Ambivalence about Children in the Family Building Process in Sweden

2014 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 57-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Bernhardt ◽  
Frances Goldscheider
Keyword(s):  
Transition To Parenthood ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
First Child ◽  
Building Process ◽  
The Family ◽  
Child Allowances ◽  
Paid Parental Leave

Sweden provides strong support for childbearing and parenthood, including generously subsidized medical, maternal, and child care, paid parental leave, and child allowances. In this context, attitudes towards parenthood are likely to have a particularly strong impact on the decision about whether and when to have children. We examine the links between first births and holding attitudes about children, not just of positive and negative attitudes, but also of ambivalence, namely those who both value children but also value the things that compete with parenthood for young adults’ time and other resources. Our analysis shows, measuring attitudes before the transition to parenthood, that ambivalence about childbearing delays the transition to parenthood, but not nearly as much as holding purely negative attitudes. Further, reporting an ambivalent experience from the first child had no significant effect on further childbearing, which testifies to the strong two-child norm in Sweden.

The Value of Postponing Pregnancy: California’s Paid Family Leave and the Timing of Pregnancies

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1467-1499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirlee Lichtman-Sadot
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Status ◽  
Hispanic Origin ◽  
Monetary Benefit ◽  
Education Levels ◽  
Lower Education ◽  
Paid Parental Leave ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract Conditioning a monetary benefit on individuals’ family status can create distortions, even in individuals’ seemingly personal decisions, such as the birth of a child. Birth timing and its response to various policies has been studied by economists in several papers. However, pregnancy timing – i.e. the timing of conception – and its response to policy announcements has not been examined. This paper makes use of a 21-month lag between announcing California’s introduction of the first paid parental leave program in the United States and its scheduled implementation to evaluate whether women timed their pregnancies in order to be eligible for the expected benefit. Using natality data, documenting all births in the United States, a difference-in-differences approach compares California births to births in states outside of California before the program’s introduction and in 2004, the year California introduced paid parental leave. The results show that the distribution of California births in 2004 significantly shifted from the first half of the year to the second half of the year, immediately after the program’s implementation. While the effect is present for all population segments of new mothers, it is largest for disadvantaged mothers – with lower education levels, of Hispanic origin, younger, and not married. These results shed light on the population segments most affected by the introduction of paid parental leave and on the equitable nature of paid parental leave policies.

STEM and Soft Occupational Competencies: Analyzing the Value of Strategic Regional Human Capital

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-371
Author(s):  
Fran Stewart ◽  
Minkyu Yeom ◽  
Alice Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regional Economies ◽  
Soft Skill ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Capital Development ◽  
Economic Well Being

This research examines the distribution of STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and soft-skill competencies in occupations within regional economies in the United States. This research explores the public policy question: Do occupational competencies offer a better measure of regional human capital than the commonly used metric of educational attainment? Policy makers at all levels of government have increasingly emphasized STEM education as vital to economic well-being. This research finds support for the importance of STEM occupational competencies to regional median wage and productivity, but findings also indicate the important contributions of “soft skills” to regional economic well-being. This suggests new avenues for region-focused training and human capital development aligned to occupational skill demands that reward workers and benefit regions.

Distance Mothering

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Bemiller
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Role Expectations ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Noncustodial Parents ◽  
Gender Role Expectations ◽  
The Family ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Ideologies Of Motherhood ◽  
The Impact

Contemporary families are diverse, though the diversity of configurations is not necessarily represented in society’s narrow definitions. This chapter focuses specifically on mothers who parent from a distance either because they have involuntarily lost custody or chose to relinquish custody to another caregiver. Noncustodial parents typically visit their children. This parenting arrangement creates a sociological opportunity to explore what it means to parent from a distance within the context of gendered notions and the family. Because noncustodial mothers violate expectations associated with dominant ideologies of motherhood (i.e., mother as primary caregiver), they provide a unique opportunity to explore the intersection between gender role expectations and parenting. This chapter discusses dominant definitions of motherhood, the experience of noncustodial mothers within the context of these dominant expectations—both in the United States and abroad—as well as the impact of long-distance mothering on the well-being of mothers and children.

scholarly journals Paid Parental Leave Laws in the United States: Does Short-Duration Leave Affect Women's Labor-Force Attachment?

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 242-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya S. Byker
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Short Duration ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
The United States ◽  
Program Participation ◽  
Women's Labor ◽  
Maternal Labor Supply ◽  
Paid Leave ◽  
Paid Parental Leave ◽  
Labor Force Attachment

I analyze the effects of short-duration paid parental leave on maternal labor supply. Using monthly longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, my event-study research design estimates impacts of paid leave laws in California and New Jersey on women's labor-force outcomes around childbirth. I find that paid leave laws are associated with a substantial increase in labor-force attachment in the months directly around birth. While US-style short-duration leave is unlikely to change prolonged exits from the labor force, my findings imply that paid leave laws induce some women stay more attached to jobs, particularly low-skill women.

Children's and Mothers' Wage Labor in Three Eastern U.S. Cities, 1880-1920

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Kleinberg
Keyword(s):  
Child Labor ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
Education Legislation ◽  
Family Economy ◽  
The Family ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
One Parent Families

The battle over child labor fought in the United States at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries pitted emerging understandings about children's well-being against those of the rest of the family. As society grew more ethnically and economically complex, social reformers lobbied for greater regulation of children's behavior, thereby altering the family economy and women's and children's roles within it. The middle classes could afford nonproductive women and children, but many working-class, immigrant, and one-parent families could not. Yet, even within the less affluent strata of society, children in certain settings, ethnic and racial groups, and family structures were much more likely to be employed than in others. This article explores the variations in children's and mothers' labor in three very different settings: Pittsburgh, Fall River, and Baltimore between 1880 and 1920. It finds that child labor and education legislation resulted in a decrease in children's employment and increased the likelihood that mothers would take paid jobs.

Impact of Policy on the Family: Can the Family Be Strengthened by Legislation?

1981 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella R. Quah
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Family

AbstractThe present interest on the family in Singapore is shared by other countries. There is continuous discussion on the effects of legislation on the family both in Europe and in the United States. The concern is primarily with family well-being and with the search for effective strategies to attain it. This search leads to the question: can the family be strengthened by legislation? The aim of this paper is to suggest a qualified answer to this question based on our own and other nations' experiences. The discussion will be divided into three parts. The first part is a brief review of what is meant by family and family policy. The second part deals with the situation of family and policy in Singapore and discusses some direct and indirect policies affecting the family. The third and final part draws some lessons for the 1980s.

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