Paid Maternity Leave Increasing, and More – New York News
Pack up the pool gear and beach towels: let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York business schools this week.
Father’s Day Data: Columbia Business School Research Demonstrates Popularity of Paid Paternity Leave – Columbia Business Blog
How has the culture of paid maternity leave been changing recently? New research from the Columbia Business School explores the topic, which has increased for 12 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. There is still no current federal law requiring the implementation of paid maternity leave, leaving the U.S. with the precarious title as the only “industrialized” country in the world without a federally-mandated law. Individual states, however, can implement the policy, which has been increasing since the early 2000s.
Earlier this year, New York became the fourth state in the U.S. to create policy regarding paid maternity leave, alongside New Jersey, Rhode Island, and California, which implemented the law back in 2004. According to the article, “California’s paid family leave produced a 46-percent increase in fathers taking time off to bond with newborn and newly-adopted children.”
CBS professor Ann Bartel writes, “This study should help inform the conversation around paid leave, because research shows it is fundamentally a family issue – appealing to both mothers and fathers. At its core, paid family leave is a ‘dad’ issue as much as it is a ‘mom’ issue. As Father’s Day approaches, our research demonstrates that fathers will greatly utilize paid family leave if it is offered, and their employers are supportive of them taking that important time away from the job.”
You can read more about “Paid Family Leave, Fathers’ Leave‐Taking, and Leave‐Sharing in Dual‐Earner Households,” which was published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, here.
How Social Media’s Powerful ‘Silent Majority’ Moves Bitcoin Prices – Stevens Institute of Technology Blog
Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business professor Feng Mai recently led an investigation to understand how social media public sentiment can significantly manipulate the value of bitcoin.
Professor Mai’s research, which was published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, encompassed scholars from Ivey, Dickinson, and the University of Cincinnati, all of whom “collected and analyzed two years’ worth of forum posts on the world’s most popular public bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk.”
The team found that “periods of increasingly positive social media commentary do in fact influence the rising price of Bitcoin significantly.” Mai writes, “We wanted to know who is affecting the price: a vocal minority, who may be biased, or the quieter majority, who do not seem to have a reason to be untruthful, or both.”
According to the article, “the “silent majority” — infrequent Twitter and Bitcointalk users who took the time to comment on the cryptocurrency’s prospects — moved prices more, as much as ten times more, when they posted positive comments.”
Mai writes, “This was a big finding, and it does seem to prove that people are trusting the silent majority much more, perhaps because they do not seem to have an agenda.”
Check out the full Stevens’ article here.
Johnson Women MBAs Boast Record-Breaking Attendance at Forté Conference – Johnson School of Management Business Feed
As we recently highlighted, Cornell’s S.C. Johnson School of Management reported that 49 Cornell students attended this year’s FortéMBA Women’s Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia—29 from the two-year MBA program, seven from the one-year program, and 13 from the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program.
The Forté Conference brings “together admitted, enrolling, and current women MBAs from Forté sponsor business schools to explore career paths, meet recruiters and mentors, and hear from today’s most influential businesswomen.”
This year’s conference featured keynote speaker Joanna Lipman, veteran journalist, chief content officer of Gannet, editor-in-chief of USA Today, and author of That’s What She Said, who spoke on “gender bias in the workplace and provided tips for how women can leverage their value.”
In addition to a Power Pitch session and a number of workshopsand panels on “on communications strategies, interviewing, design thinking, sustainable and socially responsible careers, LinkedIn, and the future of feminism, among others,” the conference also included talks from Accenture North American CEO Julie Sweet and State Street EVP and Deputy Global Chief Investment Officer Lori Heinel.
Anne Latham, Two-Year MBA ’20, writes of her experience:
“The Forte Leadership Conference was an incredible few days. I walked away feeling fortunate to have met so many of my incredible female classmates! The Dialogue with Leadership session, moderated by Dean Erika James, featuring Lori Heinel and Julie Sweet, was a particular favorite of mine, due to their incredibly engaging and thought provoking remarks. I hope we all continue to live by Julie’s advice: ‘If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough!’”
You can read the full article from Cornell here.
New Stevens Research Explores Impact of Paid Family Leave
Often “derided as costly giveaways,” the Stevens Institute of Technology looked deeper into the economic benefits of paid family leave policies, finding a fairly surprising positive effect across the board.
Stevens Associate Industry Professor Dr. Joelle Saad-Lessler and economist Kate Bahn surveyed paid family leave policies in California by looking at SIPP data from 2001, 2004, and 2008, which “gathers information on people who provide regular unpaid care or assistance to a family member or friend who has a long-term illness or a disability.” At 6 weeks of partially paid leave, California remains only one of two states, along with New Jersey, to adopt and implement such a program.
Dr. Saad-Lessler explains that that the only federal policy on the books regarding leave—signed by President Clinton in 1993—stipulates that employees are entitled to 12 weeks’ unpaid leave. But there’s a vocal consensus about the need for access to paid leave, particularly with an increased aging population. “Access to paid leave is a crucial part of the ability to care for one’s own family beyond the immediate need to take time off with a new child,” they say.
Saad-Lessler and Bahn’s research, which was funded by the Center for American Progress, explored how young women’s wages were affected when new mothers and caregivers took leave. The researchers found that labor force participation increased 8 percent in the short term and 14 percent in the long run. While there was a decline in full-time work, as workers took advantage of being able to transition to part-time roles without losing access to paid leave, the notion of a mass workforce exodus “would be a crushing economic blow.”
Dr. Saad-Lessler concludes, “We have hit a threshold where families cannot manage their careers and their caregiving responsibilities without adequate work-life policy, including paid family and medical leave. As our results show, when families do have access, they are able to increase their labor force participation.”
Drexel LeBow Professor Talks Pitfalls of Paid Parental Leave Laws
Natalie Pedersen, Assistant Professor at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business wrote an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer in which she examined the dilemmas many companies face surrounding parental leave for new parents. The main issue Pedersen explored in the article was the complexities of accommodating the needs of new mother versus new fathers.
Well-meaning employers have faced costly legal battles for providing too much leeway for new mothers. Estee Lauder, for example, employed a policy in 2013 that gave new mothers six weeks of paid parental leave in addition to paid time off to recover physically from giving birth. Fathers, under the company policy, earned two weeks of paid parental leave. This seemingly compassionate policy was actually the justification for a class-action law suit against the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is facing a similar class-action lawsuit for offering “primary caregivers” 16 paid weeks of parental leave after the birth or adoption of a child, but only two weeks for the nonprimary giver.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the policy violated the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, both of which do not allow companies to pay employees differently and offer different benefits based on gender.
In fact, under federal law, U.S. employees are not guaranteed any paid parental leave whatsoever. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) does require that some employees are given three months unpaid parental leave.
Pedersen sites studies that show that giving new parents time off of work is important for several reasons. Babies whose parents stayed home with them when they were newborns have been shown to have higher IQs and decreased infant mortality rates. Pedersen also mentions that paid leave is a wise move on the part of employers, because it will strengthen employees’ loyalty to the organization.
Companies who wish to provide benefits for new parents that extend beyond the minimum requirements of the FLMA do have options. Employers can give paid parental leave, so long as they are cautions about adhering to the parameters of the law. In fact, they can even offer slightly different benefits for new mothers and new fathers without legal ramifications. Birth mothers are recuperating from the physical aftermath of pregnancy and birth, so they can receive paid time off for medical reasons, whereas new fathers are ineligible for this benefit.
Natalie Pedersen teaches legal studies at LeBow College of Business, and has been published in several journals, including the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies and the Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal. She earned her BS in economics from The Wharton School at UPenn and a JD from Harvard University.
