Paid Family Leave at Fortune 100 Companies: A Basic Standard but Still Not the Gold Standard

摘要

Employers and employees are searching for ways to balance the competing demands of work and family. As a guide for policymakers, this report examines how firms design their paid leave policies. The majority staff of the Joint Economic Committee asked Fortune 100 companies about the length of paid leave that they provide for new parents. Among the firms that responded, about three-quarters offer mothers a specific parental leave program, either through paid family or disability leave, and the median length of leave for mothers is six to eight weeks. However, only one-third of firms report that they offer fathers paid parental leave and the median length of leave for fathers is only two weeks. Many Fortune 100 firms allow their employees to use a mix of different kinds of leave when they have a child, which significantly increases the number of weeks available to new parents. Most Fortune 100 firms (75 percent) allow employees to use accrued sick days to care for a new child. Combining paid leave from all sourcesfamily leave, pregnancy-related disability leave, and the allowable use of paid sick daysfirms offer mothers a median of 12 weeks and fathers six weeks of paid leave. Among our sample, nine-out-of-ten firms report offering some kind of paid leavefamily leave, pregnancy-related disability leave, or allowed use of accrued paid sick daysfor the birth of a child.