The Inclusiveness of Maternity Leave Rights over 120 Years and across Five Continents

Abstract

Even though paid maternity leave was the earliest form of social protection specifically aimed at women workers and is fundamental in securing their economic independence vis-à-vis employers and spouses, it has received scant scholarly attention. Neither the traditional historical accounts of welfare state emergence nor the more recent gendered analyses of developed welfare states have provided comparative accounts of its beginnings and trajectories. Employing the newly created historical database of maternity leave, we provide the first global and historical perspective on paid maternity leave policies covering 157 countries from the 1880s to 2018. Focusing on eligibility rather than generosity, we construct a measure of inclusiveness of paid maternity leaves to highlight how paid maternity leave has shaped not only gender but also social inequality, which has, until recently, largely been ignored by the literature on leave policies. The analyses of coverage expansion by sector and the development of eligibility rules reveal how paid maternity leave has historically stratified women workers by occupation and labor market position but is slowly evolving into a more universal social right across a broad range of countries. Potential drivers for this development are identified using multivariate analysis, suggesting a pivotal role for the political empowerment of women in the struggle for gender and social equality. However, the prevalence of informal labor combined with insufficient or non-existing maternity benefits outside the systems of social insurance still poses significant obstacles to the protection of women workers in some countries.

The Origin of Social Policy for Women Workers: The Emergence of Paid Maternity Leave in Western Countries

“…The ILO adopted the first Maternity Protection Convention (C3) at its very first conference in 1919 and has since updated the standards for maternity protection every three decades in two consecutive conventions (C103 and C183), in 1952 and 2000, respectively. In line with previous research, I expect that joining ILO membership would be followed by the adoption or extension of paid maternity leave (Son & Böger, 2021). I measure ILO membership with a dummy variable that codes 1 if a country is an ILO member and 0 otherwise.…”

Motherhood in the Music Academy

“…Men (both with and without children) and other colleagues without children are encouraged to speak up in support of parent-friendly policies and counter microaggressions they witness (for a helpful list of ways in which colleagues and allies might interrupt gender-based microaggressions within the workplace, see Shouldice, 2022). Structural and institutional reforms are also needed to promote change, and we find it important to emphasize here the unique impact of limited U.S.-based family and childcare policies that lag far beyond international counterparts (Son & Böger, 2021). Mason (2014) suggests that four structural reforms be implemented within higher education related to academic motherhood: (a) better and more childcare options (including emergency backup care); (b) effective dual-career policies that account for the fact that women’s careers often trail those of their male spouses; (c) better childbirth accommodations, including paid leave for both male and female parents; and (d) better compliance with and enforcement of Title IX’s prohibition on pregnancy discrimination.…”

Ship of Theseus: from ILO Standards to Outcome of Maternity Protection Policy

“…In this paper, I focus on the ILO Maternity Protection Conventions (C3, C103, C183) and paid maternity leave. Paid maternity leave was the earliest social policy for women workers, which shapes women’s economic empowerment by enabling mothers to maintain paid employment (Son and Böger, 2021). Despite the fundamental role of paid maternity leave, comparative welfare state research mainly focuses on the policy diffusion of traditional social policies that are geared toward the male breadwinner, neglecting (maternity) leave policies (Obinger et al , 2013).…”