Unpaid Parenting: An Informal Analysis of Parental Leave Policies in Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Organizations
It’s no secret that there’s a caregiving crisis in the United States, especially when it comes to childbirth. Because we have no guaranteed paid medical leave, 1 in 4 birthing parents return to their jobs just 10 days after giving birth.
At 10 days postpartum, most birthing folks are nowhere near ready to return to work. Many are still bleeding, sore, in pain, leaking, and, of course, exhausted physically and emotionally. Forcing parents to choose between keeping their jobs or caring for a new family member is cruel, discriminatory, and inhumane. Yet this is the reality for millions of people -- including many of us working at reproductive health, rights, and justice non-profit organizations.
There’s a lot of talk about how nonprofits should offer generous paid parental leave as a way to live their values, but there is very little data out there about national trends in nonprofits. PL+US puts out an annual scorecard for the best and worst paid leave policies in the corporate world, and we found a six-year-old analysis of benefits in U.S. for-profit companies and non-profit organizations, but that’s all you can access for free. Some companies put together robust reports on non-profit salaries and benefits, but they cost over $300 to access. There are some regional reports, yet nothing nationally representative. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts a compensation and benefits survey that asks about paid and unpaid leave, but they don’t differentiate between people who work in non-profits or for-profits (and when they did this in a special analysis, they didn’t cover paid leave).
It’s totally possible that we missed a key resource given how many organizations work on this issue, but we couldn’t help but wonder...WTF is going on with paid parental leave, and why is it so hard to figure out what benefits organizations offer?
In the spirit of radical transparency, we asked you to send us your organization’s paid leave policies, asking specifically about parental leave. We fully acknowledge that jobs should provide paid leave for any family or medical emergency, whether it’s the birth, adoption, or fostering of a child, caring for a loved one, or something else entirely. We hope to be able to get into a deeper analysis of ALL types of employer benefits in the future.
But in the meantime! We took a deep dive into the parental leave policies you sent us from 46 reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations. We also emailed 37 additional organizations and asked them to send us their policies. Of those, 14 responded (and one outright refused to share their policy). Here’s what we found.
The good news:
Most organizations have a policy. Yes, the bar is that low. 42 organizations have formal parental leave policies. Four did not.
Six organizations have policies that make all employees eligible for paid parental leave as soon as they start the job, instead of making them wait a period of time to be eligible. We work in the movement of unintended pregnancy, yet parental leave is one of the only benefits that isn’t available at hire or soon thereafter. We know that pregnancies can happen at any moment and family structures can shift at a moment’s notice—parental leave policies should reflect that. This also hurts people who are pregnant during a job search or become pregnant shortly after starting a new job. Until our nation has a national paid parental leave policy, organizations should support their pregnant employees, no matter when they become pregnant.
Almost all organizations include leave for the birth of a child, foster placement, or adoption. That’s wonderful and important for showing where our values are. Disturbingly, two organizations explicitly exclude foster placement from their parental leave. Our movement is about supporting all of the ways families are made, and our policies should adhere to that vision.
The majority of organizations (36) offer some amount of paid leave, which is great for workers, yet there’s more work to be done. So many of these policies have strings attached. See below for what we mean.
4 organizations offer additional benefits for caregivers. Two offer parents the option of returning to work part-time or the flexibility to work from home for a limited time. Two other organizations offer additional time off for parents to attend children’s doctor’s appointments, parent/teacher meetings, etc. These are simple ways that organizations can show that they value parents and recognize that they may need to shift the way that they work to accommodate raising a family.
The bad news:
Many organizations place unreasonable restrictions on leave eligibility.
Out of 23 policies that specified parental leave eligibility by employee type, the majority required that people be employed full time, explicitly excluding part-time workers from their policy. This puts part-time workers (who are more likely to be people of color and Black folks in particular) at a huge disadvantage, again forcing them to make the impossible choice between keeping a job, caring for a child, or finding childcare. That’s not what we mean by pro-choice, and it certainly isn’t reproductive justice. Policies should apply equally to all workers, period.
30 organizations made the amount of leave a worker can take contingent upon how long they’ve worked at the organization. This is a particularly strange policy since it implies that the longer an employee works somewhere, the more they deserve or earn parental leave. People should be able to start families if and when they choose — not when their employer dictates that they’re eligible to do so. By placing these restrictions on parental leave eligibility, organizations are communicating that they value the families of long-tenured employees over others.
The amount of paid leave offered is unacceptably low.
Most (36) organizations offer some amount of paid parental leave, varying between 2 weeks to 24 weeks. Only one organization offers what experts recommend as best for families: at least 24 weeks of paid leave with job protection, preferably 6 months to one year. Reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations by our very nature should be leading on this issue and yet we’re not even meeting the bare minimum. We understand that our nation’s system makes this extremely challenging, and it’s on us to lead by example and show our own workers and the people we serve what’s possible.
At four organizations, the amount of paid parental leave employees are eligible for increases by the number of months or years they’ve worked at the organization. Again, this is contrary to valuing all families. For two organizations, the paid parental leave is at ⅔ pay instead of full pay. We assume that’s because the parental leave is paid through the short-term disability or other insurance policy, however some organizations choose to supplement those funds to ensure the employee receives full pay. This distinction can make a huge difference for an employee who does not have additional income to help make ends meet.
20 organizations offer some amount of unpaid leave. Seven organizations ONLY offer unpaid leave, and thirteen offer unpaid leave in addition to paid leave. The amount of unpaid leave an employee can take varies from 3 weeks to 16 weeks and is often determined based on an employees’ tenure at an organization or the type of position they have.
Unpaid leave may appear generous on its face, but it often causes a huge financial strain on families and forces people to compromise their health and the health of their children. We know budgets are often the main constraint when it comes to determining what kind of benefits an organization can offer. Yet we believe it is imperative that organizational leaders ask funders to live their values and ask for more money explicitly to cover family and medical leave. At some point, employees are going to need to take time off to care for themselves or loved ones. Don’t abandon them in their time of need by withholding their paycheck.
Some organizations dictate the type and length of leave an employee can take based on the employee’s role as the parent who gave birth or the co-parent. These policies use phrases like “gestational and non-gestational parent” in what we assume is an attempt to be inclusive of queer families. Instead, these policies discriminate against parents who don’t give birth, exclude parents and guardians who grow their families through foster care and adoption, and create arbitrary distinctions between types of parents (using phrases like “primary and secondary caretaker”). Limiting one parent’s time, and even calling them a “secondary caregiver,” can be diminishing to their role in their child’s life, and means that organizations are placing more of the burden of parenting on the person who gave birth. It can limit the support systems available to a growing family. Is that the value that we want to communicate — that even at repro organizations, we still believe that women should be the “primary caretakers”?
What’s Next
The research is in: Everyone, especially people working in reproductive health, rights, and justice, is entitled to six months to one year of paid leave. No matter how long someone has been at the organization. No matter if an employee is full-time or part-time. And not just for growing a family, but for any kind of caregiving.
This is a matter of living our values, and it’s a best business practice. If organizations want to retain employees both in their organizations and in reproductive health, rights, and justice movements in general, they need to give us the time we need to recover and care for ourselves and our families.
We know 6 months to a year of paid parental leave is a dream for most organizations, and that this is a BIG systemic problem that will take time, effort, and significant funding to fix. We don’t believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good, so here’s what you can do to advocate for better parental leave at your organization.
Read the policy! Even if you don’t plan to use it anytime soon, or ever, read it. Know what your organization offers, and ask yourself it reflects the mission, vision, and values. It’s hard to advocate for what you don’t know.
Have conversations with your colleagues about what kind of paid parental leave policy you’d want to implement. Ask people who’ve used your organization’s parental leave policy what their experiences were like, and what might’ve made it better.
Partner with your coworkers to do what you can to improve your leave policy, whether it’s getting it changed from 2 weeks unpaid to 2 weeks paid leave, or making employees eligible when they’re hired instead of after three months on the job.
Ask your Human Resources—or any hiring—team to list the amount of paid and unpaid leave in job descriptions. Make sure they note when new employees become eligible for this benefit.
Stop talking about paid parental leave as “generous” unless it’s over six months.
Pay attention when presidential candidates talk about paid leave.
If you’re in the position to ask foundations for money, include the cost of six months of paid parental leave in your budget. In your budget narrative, explain how this reflects your commitment to your staff, and how research shows that this will improve the health of the organization and staff retention.
If you need resources to make your argument for an improved policy beyond values, take a look at PL+US’s resources, including several model policies and a cost-benefit analysis.
Tell us how it goes. We believe in you!