New parenthood can be a crazy, sleep-deprived, emotional roller coaster. Now imagine doing that and holding down a 9-5 job. Roberto Santiago, an interpreter and blogger, is one of the lucky men who fondly remembers his son’s newborn phase. In 2009 the 42 -year-old, who writes about parenting issues for his site Latino Dad, took four weeks parental leave from his job to be with his son. He is eternally grateful he was able to do it.
The result of California’s state paid family leave (PFL) program. A program that offers parents up to six weeks of parental leave at 60-70% of their salary.
“It was nice,” said the father of three, a doctoral student of Puerto Rican, Japanese and European descent. “My wife was on bed rest and so I was able to help her out and get to know my son.”
Despite stereotypes of the irresponsible Latin lover, most Latino fathers are actively raising their kids. But the politics of parental leave make it especially hard for many Latino fathers to get involved.
BENEFITS OF PATERNITY LEAVE
Santiago belongs to a wave of Latino men looking to play a greater role in their childrens’ lives. Their changing attitudes towards work-life balance – and the data–are pushing the debate among employers. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, about 90% of employers reported California’s PFL policies had either a positive effect or no effect on productivity and profit. In fact, “around 96% agreed it decreased employee turnover and about 99% believed it boosted employee morale.”
Yet, it goes beyond private sector balance sheets. When it comes to raising children, mothers often get a nine-month head start. For new fathers, paternity leave is an opportunity to help their partners physically recover from childbirth and create a separate relationship with their children. Researchers at the University of Oslo found that children whose fathers who took time off did better at school, while another study found that children with involved fathers had improved cognitive scores and mental health outcomes as they grew older.
Couples also reap rewards. Any new parent can tell you those first couple of weeks with a newborn are crucial in learning what different cries mean, sleeping patterns and eating habits. Partners who can get through that experience together are more likely to handle the early stresses of parenting. In Norway, a “daddy quota” forced fathers to take time off . It resulted in an 11% drop in conflict over household chores, a key global factor in relationship security. A Promundo/Dove Men+Care survey found that “68% of the men said, they felt their child had better mental health when they took longer paternity leave.”
WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?
Despite the benefits everyone gets from fathers being home, in the U.S. the responsibility of paid family leave falls mostly to private employers. The result is predictable. Only 16% of all American workers can take paid time off to care for a newborn, recently adopted child or a sick loved one.
Many workplaces still have separate, less generous benefits for men. A survey from the Society for Human Resource Management reports that only 29% of companies have some form of paid leave for fathers. Larger companies have a slightly higher percentage (48%). Even when generous policies exists, taking leave without adverse career consequences is rare. In fact, JP Morgan Chase recently agreed to pay $5 million dollars settled a lawsuit from male employees who accused the financial giant of denying them the same amount of time off as mothers.
The federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is an option when jobs don’t provide time off. It guarantees 12 weeks of protected leave for workers who are caring for a loved one for pregnancy, sickness or other temporary disability. However, the law only guarantees that workers can’t be fired. It does not provide financial benefits.
“The problem is that FMLA was designed just to offer job protected leave, but not everyone is eligible,” said Jennifer E. Brown, Economic Policy Analyst for national civil rights organization UNIDOS US. “Only 60% of workers — and 50% of working class families and 43% of Latino families— are even eligible.”
This is mostly due to the high concentration of Latinos in industries and sectors that are either not covered by FMLA. Or alternatively, traditionally rely on temporary or seasonal work like construction and agriculture.
“That’s a lot of economic stress,” said Brown. “It takes more than one person to make a family run.”
As a California resident, Santiago had access to the nation’s oldest state PFL program, Family Temporary Disability Insurance. In the 17 years since the program’s passage, four additional states and several dozen local jurisdictions have enacted their own family leave laws. Depending on the circumstances, workers receive a majority of their base salaries.
“If family comes first, then paid parental leave should be a part of it,” stated Santiago. “If you don’t have that time early on, you are really missing out on important bonding and connections.”
PARENTAL LEAVE – USE IT OR LOSE IT
Even when men have jobs that offer strong paternity leave, a majority don’t take it. Studies show that women are a third more likely to take advantage of FMLA leave than men. Fathers are less likely than mothers to take significant time off work to care for a child or family member.
What’s the holdup? Grissel Sejio, a veteran labor and employment attorney, said that gender bias, traditional cultural roles, and expectations play a huge role. Women take time off before and after giving birth because their physical health is at play, not just because they’re bonding with baby. Yet many companies – and men themselves – see paternal benefit as an extra perk instead of a necessity.
“For men, it’s a choice,” Sejio said. “But women – particularly one that has gone through a cesarean section, a hard pregnancy, gestational diabetes or any host of issues – don’t get to choose their career ambition over their physical health.”
Ironically men who are worried about finances could be playing it all wrong. In Sweden, researchers found that mothers got a 6.7% pay bump when fathers took an additional month of leave. Women with paid time off were also 40 percent more likely to return to work after birth than those without access to paid leave.
Seijo is not surprised. She says that real or practical movement around pay equity won’t happen unless benefits such as parental leave are considered just as essential for expectant fathers as they are for moms-to-be.
“If more men took the paternity leave, then the bias against FMLA or paid parental leave, especially as it relates to birthing or adopting, would shift,” notes Seijo. “But it won’t happen without them. They have to be front and center of this cultural shift.”