While high-end firms that employ the most well-educated and well-paid U.S. workers compete in a benefits arms race, too many working women are forced to skimp or skip out on maternity leave because of the United States’ lack of paid leave policy, a new analysis of data from the Department of Labor makes clear.
Nearly 1 in 4 new mothers surveyed by the department in 2012 were back at work within just two weeks of having a new baby, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at Abt Associates for an investigative feature in In These Times, published Tuesday morning.
The researchers looked at a survey of 2,852 workers who took leave in 2012, honing in on the 93 women who took time off to care for a new baby. Of those women, nearly 12 percent took a week or less; another 11 percent took between one and two weeks off, according to the analysis. Among college graduates, longer leaves ruled the day: Eighty percent of the women who took at least six weeks leave had a degree. Only 54 percent of women without a degree were able to do so.
[For more of this story, written by Emily Peck, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...vcommref=mostpopular]
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