The discussion taking place in the comments section of Tuesday's post is worth bringing out into the light. Michael of Daddy Designs took issue with my decision to catagorize the U.S. as a not-especially family-friendly country and called my defense of that characterization weak. Later in the comments, Amy made some points I wanted to make, but let me reiterate them here to shore up my argument. For reference, I define a family-friendly policy as one that tends to encourage parent-child time together or improve the health and development of children generally:
In terms of governmental policy toward leave, the U.S. has a less generous policy than any other OECD country, save Australia, where the issue is a hot political topic. Up in Canada, both moms and dads have access to government funded leave. Ditto in Sweden, where dads have special use-it-or-lose-it month of paid leave -- a benefit that 80 percent of men take advantage of. In the U.S., by way of contrast, Working Mother Magazine managed to find (in 1997) a grand total of 32 American companies that offered men paid leave.
In France, well-funded and well-regarded preschools are available for every child, and every child is has unfettered access to medical care. Paid maternity leave runs for a year. Not surprisingly -- as Amy notes in the comments -- this attention to kids shows up in the poverty stats: France has about 6 percent of its children living in poverty. The U.S. number: 17 percent.
That's the government policy. U.S. companies are notoriously stingy with family-centric benefits.
There is a flip side, as Michael point out. The U.S. has a low tax burden, ample opportunity for entrepreneurship and far less rigid government regulation of business than in other countries. We are the world's economic development engine, with a rate of unemployment (5.6 percent) far lower than that of France (9.6 percent). But just because the U.S. remains relatively more financially robust than other nation, we are not somehow more family-friendly.
(Thanks to Ann Crittenden, upon whose book -- The Price of Motherhood -- much of this post is based.)
In terms of governmental policy toward leave, the U.S. has a less generous policy than any other OECD country, save Australia, where the issue is a hot political topic. Up in Canada, both moms and dads have access to government funded leave. Ditto in Sweden, where dads have special use-it-or-lose-it month of paid leave -- a benefit that 80 percent of men take advantage of. In the U.S., by way of contrast, Working Mother Magazine managed to find (in 1997) a grand total of 32 American companies that offered men paid leave.
In France, well-funded and well-regarded preschools are available for every child, and every child is has unfettered access to medical care. Paid maternity leave runs for a year. Not surprisingly -- as Amy notes in the comments -- this attention to kids shows up in the poverty stats: France has about 6 percent of its children living in poverty. The U.S. number: 17 percent.
That's the government policy. U.S. companies are notoriously stingy with family-centric benefits.
There is a flip side, as Michael point out. The U.S. has a low tax burden, ample opportunity for entrepreneurship and far less rigid government regulation of business than in other countries. We are the world's economic development engine, with a rate of unemployment (5.6 percent) far lower than that of France (9.6 percent). But just because the U.S. remains relatively more financially robust than other nation, we are not somehow more family-friendly.
(Thanks to Ann Crittenden, upon whose book -- The Price of Motherhood -- much of this post is based.)
posted by Rebel Dad at
1:03 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home