B. BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE Among wealthy countries the United States ranks last with the offering of zero weeks of federally legislated paid parental leave (Lundquist, Misra, & O’Meara, 2012). However the United States tried to combat that issue by enacting the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993, which legislates up to twelve weeks a year of unpaid leave for care (Lundquist, et al, 2012). Yet less than 60 percent of the workforce have access to unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and only about 9 percent had access to paid leave in the year 2014 (Children Benefit, 2015). FMLA regulations exclude 61 million men from being eligible for paternity leave because of regulations that require that individuals to put in …show more content…
Although the FMLA was instituted to provide equal access to everyone, it only requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide a job- protected unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks, and companies are less likely to offer paternity leave than they are to offer maternity leave (Garcia, 2012). From those that qualify for the FMLA there are still many that do not take advantage of it. The most common reason workers that needed FMLA, but did not take it, was because they could not afford to take unpaid time off without putting a burden on their growing family (Children Benefit, 2015). Appelbaum and Milkman (2009) state that “most families now rely on the paychecks of all available adults, and their economic security depends on maintaining those income streams during bouts of illness or when caring for a new child or an ill family member” thus forcing fathers to have to choose between being at home and struggling to make ends meet or going to …show more content…
Many times fathers are recognized as the breadwinners that make it possible for the mother to stay at home with their new baby, and rarely the other way (Garcia, 2012). Fathers are unable to appropriately care for their child due to lack of access to paid time off to bond with a new child, recover from an illness, or look after a seriously ill family member which is stressful for workers, who may have no option but to quit their jobs in order to care for their families in a crisis” (Appelbaum & Milkman, 2009). This leaves the family in a difficult predicament because their life just became more expensive with a new child, yet they are losing their only source of income (Appelbaum & Milkman, 2009). Studies show that advantaged fathers (better educated, higher prestige occupations) are more likely to take leave whether paid or unpaid and for a longer period of time compared to those who are less advantaged; “these fathers may have more opportunity to take leave if they are in better, higher paying jobs that provide paid leave, or paid vacation” (Nepomnyaschy & Waldfogel, 2007). Therefore if money is not an issue for a father’s family then he is more likely to take time off work and help with the child care which