Yahoo just announced a revised paid parental leave policy. Under the new policy, mothers can take 16 weeks of paid leave with benefits when they give birth to a child. New dads can take 8 weeks. Both parents can take eight weeks of paid leave for new children via foster child placement, adoption or surrogacy. They also will provide $500 in “daily habits reimbursement” for spending on the baby during the first year. The benefits are almost double what were previously available and brings the company’s policies closer to those of its competitors Facebook and Google.
Facebook offers four months paid leave to both moms and dads. Facebook also offers its employees $4,000 in cash to spend on a new baby and $3,000 per year to defray some of the costs of child care.
Google offers up to 22 weeks of paid parental leave to parents who have a child through child birth and seven weeks paid leave to parents who have a child through surrogacy or adoption. Google also offers parents $500 in “baby bonding bucks” to spend on take-out food after a baby is born. Google also has some near-site child care and other back up child care arrangements.
The For Our Babies campaign advocates for nine months of paid parental leave which is more in line with the rest of the industrialized world. Companies like Yahoo, Google and Facebook may not be there yet, but we applaud them for expanding their paid parental leave policies. It’s time others followed suit.
Read more on this NY Times Blog.
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