277. The Problem With Working Mothers

Imagine a magical world where women can take a year off work for maternity leave while still maintaining their full salary.

Imagine also that the working mothers have no fear of being fired during said maternity leave. Let’s even pretend that their jobs are guaranteed for at least one year following their return to work.

Wouldn’t that be neat?

While we’re at it, let’s envision in this fantasy world that nobody has to pay any medical costs associated with pregnancy and birth. It is fully free of charge.

Of course, there would be free childcare options in this dream place too because, well, that’s what happens in parenting fantasies.

As it turns out, this magical world exists.
It’s called Norway.

Norway Isn’t The Only Way

Norway is not unique in how it treats working mothers. In fact, countries like Sweden, Iceland, and Canada have similar, if not better policies.

And I haven’t even touched on the subject of equal pay.

If you’ve ever mentioned the words “equal pay” in my presence you’ve no doubt heard my rant about how the government of Finland won the mic-drop moment when they started publishing every citizen’s salary for everybody else to see.

So don’t mention equal pay to me unless you want to hear that.

But let’s get back to working mothers.

The Working Mothers Monstrosity

Of the 193 countries in the world, 188 of them have federal compensation guarantees for maternity leave. That means governments have budgets to continue paying working mothers while they are working on raising a family.

There are only five countries in the entire world that offer no federal compensation guarantee. This includes:

• Marshall Islands
• Micronesia
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea

Keep in mind, the first three have a combined population of less than 100k women – which is about the same female population as in Providence, Rhode Island.

Add in Papua New Guinea, and the total amount of women impacted by these policies is still slightly less than the female population of North Carolina.

But, as I said, there are five countries whose governments don’t guarantee compensation for maternity leave. I only listed four.

The fifth one is a little larger than the others.

It’s the United States.

We Should Be Ashamed

Compared to the rest of the world, the US is horrendous when it comes to caring for working mothers. You should be ashamed.

I want you to be ashamed.

We are one of the only countries in the entire world that doesn’t meet the global minimum of 6 weeks of paid maternity leave.

The global average for paid maternity leave is 18 weeks. That’s the average.

The US average? 29 days.

The Voice Of The Working Mothers

This whole line of thinking started for me after I received this text from one of my leadership coaching clients a few days ago.

She is a senior executive at a large public company. She’s also the mother of 3 young children.

Children get sick.
People have to reschedule.
That’s normal.

“No problem,” I replied without hesitation. And we rescheduled.

But then I began to wonder how the (mostly male) leaders in her corporate environment would react to her text.

I don’t know them. But I have a good understanding of men, since I am one, and I have a good understanding of corporate America, since I’ve worked there for awhile.

My point being, I don’t think they would be supportive of her in the way I think they should.

They would probably still have their meetings without her and simply tell her afterwards: “You didn’t really miss anything important.”

That’s how most males think in most big companies.

But she did miss something important. She missed being one of the only female voices in the room.

That’s important.

The Problem With Working Mothers

Women make up 56% of the labor force in the United States.
72% of them are mothers of children under 18 years old.

Studies have shown that women with 2 or more children are some of the most productive workers in the workforce. Period. Full stop.

That makes complete sense to me.

After all, to raise 2 or more children, you need to be highly productive. You need to be organized, accountable, empowering, agile, and pretty much every other trait that defines a successful leader.

But if we were to judge a country based on how they treat their most productive workers, corporate America would probably be convicted of war crimes.

As we already determined up top, our federal government is in the lowest 3% of the world in terms of support for maternity care. Individual states aren’t much better.

New Hampshire has the best maternity policy of any state in the US. What makes them the best? They allow a measly 6 weeks total leave (pre- and post-birth combined) at a 60% pay rate.

That’s the best the United States has to offer. It doesn’t get any better than that in terms of mandated policy.

Even Zambia is better. They provide mothers with 14 weeks at 100% pay.

Norway is definitely shaking its head at us.

In fact, every working mother in every country in the world should be shaking their head at us.

I don’t blame them.

Changing Attitudes About Working Mothers

Change is not going to come from our federal government any time soon. It probably isn’t going to come from our state governments either.

Changing attitudes about working mothers starts with you and whatever company you rode in on.

So here’s my challenge to you.

Analyze how well your company is doing in terms of fairness to females (and all other non-white males, for that matter). Explore ways you can, as a unified group, promote change.

Here are some questions for you to consider (thanks to HeyMama.co for these)

• Does your company offer flexible working hours, including the ability to work from home?
• How reasonable are the sick and family leave policies for working mothers?
• What are the policies to accommodate childcare responsibilities, like school meetings, school closings, or child emergencies?
• Do you offer a reasonable amount of maternity leave at 100% pay? Does pay scale down for longer leave time? And what is the guarantee of the mother maintaining her job upon return?
• Is there preferred parking for pregnant women?
• Does your company offer childcare discounts?
• Are company events family-friendly?
• How many working moms are on the team and/or employed at the company? How many are in leadership positions?
• Are there programs to bring non-working mothers back to the workforce when they are ready?

So tell me, what are you going to do to make change happen?

As for me, I might move my family to Norway.