Family Values, Valuing Families

According to an article in USA Today, the US lags the rest of the world in government support for family oriented work policies.

For example, the U.S. is one of only five countries out of 173 in the survey that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave; the others are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea.

Truth is, the US leaves it up to companies to decide what kinds of benefits, including family-oriented ones, to offer to workers. The belief is that in a free market, if perks like these are really desired by enough workers then companies will offer them.

Many big companies in the US offer lots of family-friendly benefits, but this study shows that in the aggregate we lag way behind the rest of the world.