Other countries. While the United States thus
far has emphasized parental leave policies
developed by employers alone or through col-
lective bargaining, such benefits in other
countries are frequently government-mandated.
Statutes in Sweden, Canada, and the United
Kingdom provide pertinent information for the
current debate in the United States over a na-
tional parental leave policy.

Sweden has perhaps the most comprehensive
Parental leave policy in the world. The Child
Care Leave Act of 1978 permits Swedish em-
ployees to take up to 12 months of leave to care
for their children. The leave can be divided be-
tween both parents and can be taken in full days
or in partial-day increments until the child
reaches age 8. While on parental leave, em-
ployees are paid 90 percent of pay for 9 months
and a flat rate for the remaining 3 months. The
Payments are from a national insurance fund,
financed by a tax on employers and through
general government revenues.

Canada has a decentralized parental leave
policy. Its only nationwide parental leave policy
applies to Federal Public Service employees. '°
All but one of the provincial and territorial gov-
ernments (the Northwest Territories) mandate
unpaid maternity leave benefits for public and
Private sector workers in their jurisdictions. A
minority of jurisdictions also mandate unpaid
paternity leave. In most jurisdictions, the dura-
tion of leave is 17 or 18 weeks.!!

In the United Kingdom, the Employment
Protection Act of 1975 mandates parental leave
benefits for female employees. Qualifying
women can receive post-disability maternity
leave with pay equal to 90 percent of salary for
up to 6 weeks. The benefit is paid from a Mater-
nity Pay Fund, which is financed by payroll
taxes on employers and employees. In addition
to paid leave, women can receive unpaid leave
for up to 29 weeks after the birth of a child.
Women who work for employers with more
than six workers are guaranteed reinstatement
after maternity leave. Male employees receive
no statutory parental leave benefits.

LEAVE BENEFITS FOR NEW PARENTS have become
more important as the demographic composition

Footnotes

Table 2. Percent distribution of full-time employees
covered by unpaid maternity and paternity leave
policies, by maximum duration of leave, medium
and large firms in private industry, 1988

a | cee | ae [Pees
Maximum duration’ ‘employees | administrative | clerical | service
employees | employees | employees

Ail full-time employees covered

unpaid matory leave pole” “ 100 100 100 100
Under 6 weeks 2 3 3 2
6 weeks ... . 19 13 14 2
Over 6 but under 8 weeks ® ® 8 (0)
Bweeks ............ 4 4 3 5
‘Over 8 but under 13 weeks W abl 1 12
13 weeks ......... 10 W 12 8
Over 13 but under 26 weeks 23 25 24 22
26 weeks...... wee 17 17 20 14
‘Over 26 but under 52 weeks. 4 4 4 4
52 ” 9 ah 8 7
Over 52 weeks .......... 6 1 8 cc)
Average duration (weeks) ....... 19.1 208 19.5 176
All full-time employees covered by
unpaid paterni jave policies? 100 100 100 100
4 4 4 5
22 16 19 30
® 1 1 ®
2 2 3 1
12 ab] 10 14
14 16 15 12
‘Over 13 but under 26 weeks 16 15 15 19
26 weeks 2.0.0.0... 7 19 2 12
‘Over 26 but under 52 weeks 1 1 1 2
S2weeks ............ Ww 16 10 7
Average duration (weeks) ....... 18.3 20.7 18.8 16.0
‘ Data include policies that provide a maximum number of unpaid days off; paid days off are not

incl 1.

? Data are for male and female employees. See box, p. 21, for detail on defining and tabulating

Parental leave.

3 Less than 0.5 percent.
Nore: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals.

of the work force has changed. The Bureau of
Labor Statistics projects that women will ac-
count for 64 percent of U.S. labor force growth
to the year 2000, suggesting that interest in
parental leave is not likely to subside.!? Em-
ployers and governments are beginning to ad-
dress the parental leave issue, and the debate
can be expected to continue. Oo

} The 1988 Employee Benefits Survey is a sample survey
of approximately 2,500 private sector establishments in the
District of Columbia and all States, except Alaska and
Hawaii. The survey provides data on a variety of employee
benefits, such as leave benefits, short- and long-term dis-
ability coverage, health benefits, life insurance, retirement
and capital accumulation plans, child care, employee assis-
tance programs, and educational assistance. Survey data are

published in a Department of Labor news release, in Bul-
letin 2336, Employee Benefits in Medium and Large Firms,
1988 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1989), and in articles in
the Monthly Labor Review.

? The Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of
about 55,800 households, provides information on the labor
force, employment, and unemployment by demographic
and economic characteristics.

Monthly Labor Review October 1989 23



Employer Provisions for Parental Leave

ternity leave, and only 1 percent by paid pater-
nity leave. Both types of leave, usually pro-
vided at full pay, generally were limited to | or
3 days. Workers who received paid parental
leave sometimes received unpaid Parental leave
as well; in these instances, they would be paid
for a short time at the beginning of the leave
period with the remainder of the period being
unpaid.

The survey reported separate data for em-
ployees in three broad occupational groups:
professional and administrative, technical and
clerical, and production and service. The pro-
fessional and administrative and technical and
clerical groups (white-collar workers) were
more likely to have parental leave than were the
production and service group (blue-collar work-
ers). (See table 1.) Maternity leave policies
covered 40 percent of professional and adminis-
trative employees and 36 percent of technical
and clerical employees, compared with 33 per-
cent of production and service employees.
Paternity leave benefits were available to 20
percent of professional and administrative
workers, 18 percent of technical and clerical

Table 1. Percent of full-time employees covered by
rental leave policies, medium and large firms

in private

industry, 1988

Type of policy

Professional | Technical | Production

All and and and

employees | administrative | clerical service
employees | employees | employees

All fulltime employees .....

Employees covered by

Parental leavet

Maternity leave.
Unpaid days only’.
Paid days only

Both unpaid and paid days. |||

Iomation Rot available on
lays...
No matemity leave

Employees not covered by
parental leave .........,

All full-time employees .
Employees covered by

parental leave’.
Patemity leave . .

Both unpaid and paid days’ || ||

information not available

type of days...
No patemity leave

Employees not covered by
parental leave! 6.6...

100 100 100 100
36 40 7 B
36 40 36 33
30 34 3t 28

1 2 1 1

1 1 1 1
3

8 i 4 é

64 60 63 67
100 100 100 100
36 40 37 33
7 20 18 14
14 17 18 12
} 4 1

) 2) ) @
1 2 2 1
19 20 19 19
64 60 cd 67

1g arental leave refers to nondisability matemity leave or paternity leave. Both male and female
employees were counted as being covered by maternity or paternity leave if the benefit was
available. (See box, p, 21, for detall on defining and tabulating parental leave.)

2 Less than 0.5 percent.

Note: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals.

22 Monthly Labor Review October 1989

TT

workers, and 14 percent of production and serv-
ice workers.

White-collar workers also had a longer aver-
age duration of parental leave benefits than did
blue-collar workers. The maximum duration of
unpaid maternity leave averaged 20.8 weeks for
professional and administrative employees and
19.5 weeks for technical and clerical workers,
compared with 17.6 weeks for production and
service workers. For paternity leave, maximum
duration averaged 20.7 weeks for professional
and administrative employees, 18.8 weeks for
technical and clerical employees, and 16.0
weeks for production and service workers.

Parental leave policies differ in their provi-
sions for continuing health care and life in-
surance coverage during periods of leave, the
amount employees must pay to continue these
benefits, and the accrual of seniority and pen-
sion plan credits. However, these items were
not studied in the 1988 survey.®

The Employee Benefits Survey of State and
local government employees in 1987 shows that
more than half of these government workers
were covered by policies providing unpaid ma-
ternity leave, and one-third by policies for un-
paid paternity leave. As is the case in private
industry, paid maternity and Paternity leave
Coverage was rare in the public sector.

Mandated parental leave

United States. In addition to policies estab-
lished by individual firms, laws in six States call
for nondisability parental leave benefits. Maine,
Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin,
and Vermont require employers to provide a
specified duration of unpaid parental leave for
male and female private sector employees.
Duration of the mandated leave ranges from 6 to
13 weeks. These States have laws requiring that
an employee receive his or her job or a similar
job upon returning from parental leave. The
laws also prohibit employers from reducing the
compensation or seniority of an employee who
returns from leave within the legally required
time.

In the Employee Benefits Survey, workers in
States mandating parental leave benefits were
counted as receiving the mandated level of ben-
efits. If the employer offered more generous
benefits than legally required, then the workers
were counted as receiving the higher level.

The issue of parental leave has also received
congressional attention. The U.S. Congress,
over the last several years, has debated bills that
would require employers to grant employees
unpaid leave to care for a newborn, newly
adopted, or seriously ill child.?



Joseph R.
Meisenheimer II

Joseph R. Meisenheimer
IL, an economist formerly
with the Division of
Occupational Pay and
Employee Benefit Levels,
Bureau of Labor Statistics,
is currently with the
Division of Labor Force
Statistics.

Employer provisions
for parental leave

Slightly more than one-third

of full-time employees in medium and large firms

in private industry were covered

by maternity or paternity leave policies;

days off were usually without pay

rowth in the number of two-earner
Gis and in the number of working

women of childbearing age has stimu-
lated interest in leave arrangements for working
parents. But what arrangements are available
for new parents who need time off from work to
care for infants? A recent Bureau of Labor
Statistics survey found that while parental leave
may provoke much discussion, it is not widely
available to employees, For example, in 1988,
only 36 percent of the full-time employees in
medium and large firms in private industry were
covered by matemity or paternity leave poli-
cies—2 percent of them were under policies
providing for paid leave.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 1988 Em-
ployee Benefits Survey provides representative
data for approximately 31 million full-time em-
ployees of establishments employing 100 work-
ers or more.! This article analyzes survey data
on the incidence and the provisions of employ-
ers’ parental leave policies. In addition, legisla-
tive developments in this country and abroad are
summarized.

Changing demographics
Data from the Current Population Survey? docu-

ment the increasing labor force participation of
women. In 1988, 57 percent of all women were

20 Monthly Labor Review October 1989

7H

in the labor force, as were 71 percent of women
between the childbearing ages of 16 and 44
years, up from 42 percent and 47 percent, re-
spectively, in 1968. Further, three-fourths of
the working women held full-time jobs in
1988.3

The increased labor force participation of
women has shifted the balance between working
and raising a family. Women are less likely to
leave the labor force to raise families today than
they were during the post-World War I baby
boom. Rather, many women now maintain ca-
reers and raise families simultaneously.

For example, in the 1950's, the labor force
participation rate of women in the prime child-
bearing age group (25 to 34 years) was much
lower than that of women in the 20-to-24 and
35-to-44 age groups. Today, however, labor
force participation of women no longer drops
significantly during these prime childbearing
years. In 1988, 73 percent of women in the
25-to-34 age group participated in the labor
force, approximately the same percentage as
those in the 20-to-24 and 35-to-44 age groups.*

These demographic changes have sparked
interest in the work-family relationship. Such
issues as employer-sponsored dependent care,
flexible work arrangements, and, in particular,
parental leave are of interest to all workers,
especially parents.



workers’ compensation—wages, salaries, and
employer costs for workers’ benefits. The ECI,
like the Consumer Price Index, has a market
basket with base-period weights; the ECI uses
fixed employment weights by occupation and
by industry. It has developed in stages to its
current profile of more than 100 published se-
ries, including occupations, industries, geo-
graphic regions, and union statu:

Discussion continues on such issues as the
treatment of lump-sum and other nonrecurring
payments, and the value of noncash payments
such as health insurance, retirement contribu-
tions, and child care benefits. It is clear that the
classification system in the wage area will con-
tinue to undergo further development.

Where we are

This article has focused on three examples
which illustrate different aspects of the evolu-
tion of content in Federal statistics. The first,
the system of industry classification, introduced
order and relationship into survey design so that
statistical data could be defined more precisely,
presented more intelligently, and analyzed in a
more meaningful fashion. Although a number
of revisions and additions to the Standard Indus-
trial Classification system have taken place, the
system has promoted stability in data relation-
ships over a long period of time. The industrial
restructuring that has taken place, especially
over the last few decades, and the challenges of
new technology suggest that it may be time for
a comprehensive reexamination of the concepts
underlying the sic structure and a modernization
of the entire system.

The review of the definitions of race and
ethnicity shows the evolution that occurred in
collecting and processing these demographic

Footnotes

data; it also demonstrates the use of innovative
approaches to deal with societal change within
the survey process. These issues remain with
us. As the country’s ethnic composition and the
situation of our minority citizens change, our
information data base must be kept relevant.
The final example deals with the historical
development of an economic concept, clearly
‘one of the most difficult of all the issues with
which the survey statistician must deal. Com-
pensation, which can be looked at as a cost to
the employer as well as a benefit to the worker,
has been measured in one form or another for
more than a century, and studies on the issues
are still going on. This example is intended to
show how a clear understanding of the underly-
ing concept is essential for the collection of
meaningful data. The statistical system will
need to give far more attention in the future than
it has in the past to the identification and delin-
eation of the concepts which underlie our data
collection. Indeed, this area is one of the most
important elements of nonsampling error that
must be dealt with by the statistical system.
‘As we look to the future, we see emerging
issues of economic growth, income distribution,
potential labor shortages, illness, pollution, and
a whole host of other important topics. Will the
progress made in the three areas discussed here
be sufficient to carry us into the year 2000 and
beyond? Probably not. But we have seen from
this brief review that the changing views of
society force changes in survey concepts and
definitions so that the Nation’s data base can
keep up with society’s needs. We know that
changes will occur in the future, and we believe
that the statistical community will continue to
be responsive to the need of our country for
information that remains relevant to the critical
issues of our time. o

| Bureau of the Census, Twenty Censuses: Population
and Housing Questions, 1790-1980 (Washington, Gov-
ernment Printing Office, 1979), pp. 43-44.

2 “Thumbnail Sketches of BLS Statistical Series,” Bureau
of Labor Statistics, unpublished, Apr. 2, 1964

3 bid.

4 Katherine K. Wallman and John Hodgdon, “Race and
Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative
Reporting,” Statistical Reporter, 1977, pp. 450-54.

5 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Directory of Data Sources
on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, Bulletin 1879 (Washing-
ton, Government Printing Office, 1975).

© For an excellent discussion of the development of these
questions, see Elizabeth Martin, Theresa DeMaio, and
Pamela Campanelli, “Context Effects for Census Measures
on Race and Hispanic Origin,” Proceedings of the American
Statistical Association Annual Meetings, 1988.

7 Martin Bulmer, “A Controversial Census Topic: Race
and Ethnicity in the British Census,” Journal of Official
Statistics, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1986, pp. 471-80.

8 Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics, First Annual
Report (Hartford, ct, Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.,
1885).

9 tid.

0 pid.

11 U.S. Commissioner of Labor, First Annual Report,

Industrial Depressions (Washington, Government Printing
Office, 1886), p. 142.

12 National Convention of Chiefs and Commissioners of
the Various Bureaus of Statistics of Labor in the United
States, Proceedings, 1889, p. 20.

13 “Thumbnail Sketches.”

The changing
views of society
force changes in
survey concepts
and definitions.

Monthly Labor Review October 1989

19



Incidence and provisions

The Employee Benefits Survey defines parental
leave as an employer policy allowing a father or
mother to take time off from work to care for a
newborn child. (See box below.) Because such
policies may differ for mothers and fathers, the
Bureau collected data separately on maternity
and paternity leave provisions.

Maternity leave was available more fre-
quently than was paternity leave. Thirty-six per-
cent of full-time employees of medium and
large private firms (11 million men and women)
were covered by maternity leave policies, and
17 percent of employees (5 million) by paternity
leave policies. Both types of leave were almost
always without pay; nearly nine-tenths of the
employees under each type of policy could re-

ceive only unpaid days off. (See table 1.)

Maximum durations of unpaid maternity and
paternity leave varied, but commonly were be-
tween 6 and 26 weeks. The most common max-
imum duration of unpaid maternity leave was 6
weeks, covering 19 percent of the employees.
(See table 2.) Other common maximum dura-
tions were 13, 26, and 52 weeks. Employees
rarely could receive more than 52 weeks of un-
paid maternity leave. The maximum durations
of unpaid paternity leave were similar to those
of unpaid maternity leave. The average maxi-
mum duration was 19.1 weeks for unpaid
maternity leave and i8.3 weeks for unpaid pa-
ternity leave.*

Paid parental leave was rare in medium and
large firms in private industry. Only 2 percent of
full-time employees were covered by paid ma-

Parental leave is an employer policy allowing
a father or mother to take time off from work
to care for a newborn child. A parent must
reasonably expect to have his or her job or a
similar job available upon returning to work,
and cannot be penalized by the employer for
taking parental leave.

The benefit is separate and in addition to
other established leave plans available both to
new parents and other employees, such as
vacations, sick leave, and personal leave. Ac-
cording to the 1988 Employee Benefits Sur-
vey, nearly all employees in medium and
large firms in private industry received paid
vacations, and almost one-quarter received
paid personal leave. Although an employee
might be permitted to use these leave benefits
to care for a newborn child, such benefits
were excluded from the definition of parental
leave used in this analysis. Thus, the data in
this article may understate the availability of
leave benefits for new parents.

However, the survey’s definition of
parental leave is not restricted to policies
specifically limited to maternity and paternity
leave. It also includes general leave-of-
absence plans—covering such situations as
extended training or military leave—under
which employees can reasonably expect an
opportunity to take time off after the birth of
a child. In fact, benefits were usually pro-
vided through these general leave-of-absence
policies, rather than through specific parental
leave plans.

Only nondisability parental leave benefits
are considered in this analysis. Replacement

Defining and measuring parental leave

income for disability associated with mater-
nity is provided under an employer's short-
term disability program, as required by the
Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. (The
act prohibits employers from discriminating
against female employees on the basis of
pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical con-
ditions.) In 1988, 89 percent of full-time
workers in medium and large firms in private
industry had short-term disability benefit
plans.

The data in this article refer to potential
rather than actual beneficiaries. The Em-
ployee Benefits Survey did not obtain infor-
mation on the number of workers actually
taking parental leave. Therefore, data on the
incidence of leave policies may reflect the
composition of a company’s work force. Em-
ployers may offer parental leave benefits
more frequently when employees are ex-
pected to need such benefits.

Also, the data show the percent of workers
covered by parental leave policies without re-
gard to gender, age, or family status. For ex-
ample, suppose an establishment with 100
employees (50 men and 50 women) had a
maternity leave policy applicable to all work-
ers. In this case, the survey would count all
100 employees as covered by the maternity
leave policy, even though many were not
women of childbearing age.

Employees who were required to work a
minimum period, such as 6 months or | year,
before they qualified for parental leave were
considered covered by the policy, even if they
had not yet fulfilled the service requirement.

Monthly Labor Review October 1989 21