Public Opinion Supports Paid Maternity Leave

deep dive SodaHead Half of Working Women Don't Get Paid Maternity Leave: a weekly infographic Should They? Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes More than two-thirds of voters think women should get paid maternity leave. 70% Yes 30% No Men Make Light of Maternity Leave The gender gap on this issue is enormous. 17% That's not too surprising, considering it primarily affects women, 47% No No 83% Yes 53% Yes but it does indicate a major disconnect between the sexes. (We'll save the paternity leave debate for another day.) Women Men What to Expect When You're Expecting 100%- Yes 75% Respondents who had kids of their own, both men and women, were slightly less enthusiastic about paid leave. However, 100% of expecting mothers and fathers supported it. What did you expect? Yes 63% Yes Expecting Parents No Kids Fewer Workers Want Leave 63% Part-time: 88% Unemployed: 79% 52% Generally speaking, maternity leave only works if you've got a job to take leave from. Full-time: Retired: Interestingly, full-time workers were among the least supportive of mandated paid leave. Retirees were even less so. Multicultural Maternity* The U.S. is currently one of the only countries without a federally established paid maternity mandate. Most of the countries listed below compensate for 100% of missed income over the given period of time. (The U.K. compensates for 92%.) Sweden: 480 days UK: 364 days Brazil: 120 days China: 90 days Mexico: 84 days US: O days SodaHead, 2011 (http://www.sodahead.com/poll/2277099/) *United Nations, 2011 (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/tab5g.htm) Results taken from SodaHead.com on November 18. 2011. Vote, comment, and share at SodaHead © 2011 SodaHead.com Total votes: 1,473