In the US the only law mandating maternity leave is the Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993, which permits women to take twelve weeks of unpaid leave. That measure, enacted with great fanfare, barely brought the US up to the global standard established by the ILO, a UN agency, in 1952 . The agency has long considered a 12-week leave to be the minimum permissible, and recommends at least 14 weeks. In countries where cash benefits are provided through social security, the agency standard calls for governments to pay a woman at a rate of not less than two-thirds of her previous insured earnings, with full health benefits. More than eighty countries stipulate that a woman shall receive 100 percent of her wages for some length of time.
Similar provisions apply in Sweden and Denmark.
In Austria, for example, a woman must tell her employer of her pregnancy and the likely date of birth as soon as she herself knows. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, notification must follow a strict procedure or the woman could lose the protection of the courts in any dispute. Some countries allow employers to make rules so restrictive that women cannot qualify or receive only partial pay. In many impoverished countries, where women work in the so-called informal sector, legislation has little meaning. In some African countries laws mandate maternity benefits, but the agencies that would administer the programs have ceased to exist.