Pursuing Paid Family and Medical Leave

Senior Fellow Vicki Shabo summarizes evidence supporting likely outcomes resulting from comprehensive, universal, well-designed paid family and medical leave on seven dimensions for workers, families, businesses, and the economy.

Senior Fellow Vicki Shabo and researcher Hannah Friedman explore rural health, demographics, and labor force trends and analyze access to paid leave and distances to hospitals to argue that paid leave is a rural health and economic imperative.

New America's Vicki Shabo and Urban Institute's Chantel Boyens and Jack Smalligan describe the evolution of policy considerations in federal paid leave policymaking between 1993 and 2021.

Using user-centered design and data to make sure all families benefit from these critical policies.

The proposed Build Back Better legislation represents the first major U.S. attempt to invest in building a care infrastructure that recognizes the value of care and care workers, invests in children and families, and, by reducing the friction between work and care, could boost the economic opportunities of women and caregivers and spur men to be more equitably involved in care work at home. 

With so much at stake, New America offers this fact sheet, along with resources, research, and connections to experts and practitioners at New America, in order to help put this potentially historic moment in perspective.

Passing a major new social program like paid family and medical leave (PFML) is only the first step in creating change. To achieve real impact, PFML programs must be well implemented — and as more and more states pass PFML programs, the urgency of such good implementation has never been higher. In 2019, New America staffed a discovery sprint team to explore New Jersey’s pioneering PFML program, using a mixture of beneficiary interviews, data analysis, and business processing mapping. Based on that research, this report outlines key implementation learnings for administrators in other states, focusing on: (a) communicating about PFML, (b) outreach strategies, (c) applications and processing, and (d) IT infrastructure.

To better understand how political party identity may impact the caregiving attitudes and behaviors of people across gender, and the use of and need for paid family and medical leave, the Better Life Lab at New America and NORC at the University of Chicago collected nationally representative survey data on caregiving. Contrary to conventional wisdom among lawmakers that caregiving and paid leave are niche issues only relevant to women, results of this survey indicate there is widespread bipartisan support for paid family and medical leave for caregivers, and that respondents across political ideologies are equally likely to have taken leave from their jobs to care for a family member or newborn. This report explores in detail how men and women of different political party affiliations align and diverge on their attitudes toward care, work-care conflict, and paid family and medical leave.

The Better Life Lab at New America engaged in a multi-method study of men and caregiving in the United States, which included questions directed at fathers and mothers. The study suggests that the past model of fatherhood as mainly about providing financially has been replaced by a new vision of fatherhood, one focused first and foremost on showing love and affection and teaching children about life. It also finds that fathers, like mothers, yearn for more quality time with their children and for more opportunities to be present and involved in their daily care. About one-third of fathers believe there are barriers preventing them from being the dads they want to be.

Rather than thinking caregiving is something only women should do, Americans’ attitudes toward men giving care and taking caregiving leaves are evolving, most notably among men themselves. Based on a nationally representative survey conducted in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago, and five online focus groups, this report points to key barriers men face that may prevent them from taking time off from work to engage in caregiving.

Ahead of the 2020 election season, we partnered with the YWCA to ask women how those family responsibilities impact their ability to keep their jobs or advance in the workplace and what they think would best help them manage work and care. The YWCA national survey, YWomenVote2020, oversamples women of color and young women, offering a unique opportunity to elevate the voices of women whose experiences and beliefs are often missing from survey research.

With families under intensifying time pressure and stress, growing economic inequality, and widespread public support for paid family leave, more policymakers on the federal and state level and individual companies and organizations are grappling with how to craft paid family and medical leave policies that will support individuals and families, and work for businesses and the economy.

But how long should those leaves last? How much time is enough? And for whom?

Senior Fellow Vicki Shabo writes for the Boston Globe about the divergence in state policies between those that support reproductive freedom and supports for families and those that do neither.

In early 2020, the Better Life Lab put out a call to journalists and writers across the country offering reporting grants for pieces that answered one simple question: What does it mean to live in a country where there is no national guarantee of paid family and medical leave? Paid family and medical leave enables people to take time away from work to care for themselves, a loved one, or a child without risking financial calamity. What are the benefits to those lucky few who have it? The Haves. And what are the consequences for so many who don’t? The Have Nots. Not long after the launch of the project, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the question into even sharper relief as workplaces, schools, and childcare centers closed and so many families, both with and without access to paid family leave, were pushed to the breaking point.

Brigid Schulte and Stavroula Pabst wrote for the Harvard Business Review about what companies can do to support single parents.

Vicki Shabo coauthored an op-ed with Marcia St. Hilaire-Finn, a D.C. child care center owner, for USA Today about the outdated notions of care infrastructure and women's roles in providing care.

Haley Swenson and Vicki Shabo provided technical assistance to a hairstylist working to mobilize the beauty industry.

Vicki Shabo wrote a Medium post highlighting strong and growing public support for universal paid sick days and paid family and medical leave protections (linking to a memo she wrote with additional details to help guide advocacy and public education efforts toward package four); Medium selected her post to highlight to its Politics page readers.

Vicki Shabo wrote about the latest congressional actions which will impact millions of workers’ access to paid sick time, family care leave, and unemployment assistance. She also explains that despite the historic and necessary improvements to U.S. labor and employment laws, Congress’ work is not nearly done, laying out what what Congress must do in its next relief package to give all workers access to vital policies, like paid sick leave, immediately.

Vicki Shabo submitted a comment letter to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee regarding the paid leave provisions in the Build Back Better Act.

Vicki Shabo testified as a policy expert in the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the need for comprehensive paid leave.

Vicki Shabo submitted a statement for the record related to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee's Worker and Family Support Subcommittee's hearing on universal paid leave and child care.

Vicki Shabo testified as a policy expert in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions hearing on the need for comprehensive paid family and medical leave.

Vicki Shabo submitted a comment letter to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee responding to a hearing on paid leave, child care, and the U.S. economy.

Vicki Shabo submitted a letter to the Department of Labor Women's Bureau responding to a request for information about paid family and medical leave access and design.