of only seven countries in the
world without a national paid family leave plan. Right
now, the only federal plan is 12 weeks of unpaid leave
and only for qualified workers. President biden has
vowed to pass a federal family leave bill, but
lawmakers aren't budging. So when almost every other
country in the world has parental leave options.
Newsy's Bianca Facchinei, expla why it's so hard to
get lawmakers to create one here poll after poll,
americans have spoken a majority of the country want
paid maternity leave advocates say a nationwide system
would give everyone a standard level of coverage, eve
if you move from state to state. If this could be
solved in the private sector by businesses, we'd
already had research increasing shows paid leave as a
critical benefit for parents and their Children.
According to one Harvard study paid leave reduces
postpartum depression improves the physical and mental
health of parents and Children and help kids develop
better relationships with their moms and dads, Moms are
better better off. Kids are better off the welfare and
well being of mother's mental health, their health
outcomes and Children is better as a result of access
to paid family leave. One study even found paid
maternity leave helped lower infant mortality rates by
10%. Paid leave is also shown to boost the economy and
analysis from the Center for american progress found
workers and their families lost a collective $22
billion in wages because they didn't have paid leave. C
Ap also found that paid leave increases the chance
that a parent will come back to work rather than drop
out or find a new job that helps grow the labor force
and lowers the dependence on public assistance. We want
parents to work like they don't have Children, but
parents like they don't have a job. But even though
study after study shows americans want paid family
leave. There's hesitation. Firs of all, it's expensive.
As part of President joe biden's build back better plan.
Last year, the house passed a $200 billion.04 weeks
paid leave plan for all workers. But for years,
americans have been divided ove who should pay for a
policy like this. In a 2017 survey from Pew Research,
only 28% of adults strongly support higher taxes o
wealthy people and corporations to paper leave, even
fewer support paying into a government fund through
payroll contributions over half say employers should be
required to foot the bill. But the National Small
Business Association worries, many can't afford it.
These proposals, these plans are drafted is one size
fits all and there will be much easier to comply with
if you're a very large company than if you're a very
small. Come the president's plan has also stalled in
Congress because democrats and republicans have vastly
different ideas on how to fund paid leave. People
should be able to have family leave as they need it,
but also we should be paying into it from the same as
we do Social Security. It's employer employe
participation. Lawmakers are also fighting over how
much money people can make on paid leave. President
Biden's plan would cover workers on a sliding scale
through the social security system. Low income earners
could be reimbursed the most up to 85%. High earners
would get as little as 5% covered. That idea ran into a
roadblock when mansion argued it would add to the
ballooning national debt and drained social security,
then there's the matter of who will be covered.
Democrats want the policy to also apply to sick leave
and family emergencies, but to get the bill through the
Senate, they're willing to narr that down to only new
parents Bianca Foschini Newsy Okay, One country taking
a very different approach to family leave is Japan
mothers can take a year off to stay with newborns.
Fathers can take 30 weeks of full pay. That's the most
generous plan in the world for new dads and one of
those dads is here with us tonight from Japan shoe
matsu a post joins us. He's an author ted talk speaker
and feminist advocate. He also took seven months of
leave after the birth of his son. Thank you so much for
coming on with us. Thanks for having me saturday. So
you took most of the year off for parental leave. Wh
did the government help cover for you in Japan So the
government paid for, usually th paid for up to 66% of
your salary, but there is a cap for higher earners. Um,
but you know both my wife and I to decide to take
parental leave when we welcome their first child and um,
yeah, we're more than okay. I would say because we got
the government, hey, every mont can I ask what kind
of work you do Yes. So at the time, um, I was working
for an american company, um, providing coworking space.
Um, and um, yeah, I was, I was a full time employee and
director of the employer and so how is paid leave
funded in Japan It's the, it's through the taxes. So,
um, we have, we pay pretty high taxes actually in J
Um, but that also covers, um, you know, health care
pension and obviously things like parentally for anyone
who wants to take it. And this incentivizes, um, more
parents to take it because, because of the decline in
population as well. So the government wants more
parents to take it, um, to encourage more parents to
have Children here for people who do take leave, Could
you ever lose your job if you do take that parental
leave Uh, no, it's it's it's illegal. However, um, you
know, I've heard of bosses denying requests from th
employees to take parental leave or there's definitely
a cultural pressure, especially from men to stay, uh,
you know, in their role, even after they have their
Children. Um, because of, you know, the the image of
masculinity that we have, you know, a man needs to be
the sole breadwinner of the family. You know, that's
slowly changing, but um, you can't get fired from
taking parental leave legally. say you never had a
father figure that was heavily involved in childcare
because that was a woman's job. How did you shift your
views on that Um, I would give all the credit to my
wife actually, so when she and I met, um, but she, she
is actually a teacher at an international school and
she happens to teach gender and language and when we
first met, she, um, she was very curious of where my
beliefs came from because I was definitely more and
more like a traditional um masculine. Um, I believe
that, you know, I had to pay for dates up to like, you
know, the first five or six dates or something because
I read something like that in dating books before and
you know, things like that, she like gently challenge
me and that really opened up conversations about w
my beliefs came from and eventually we got engaged and
we talked about what we were going to do with their
last names and you know, she basically flat out told me
that she didn't want to just change her name to my
birth name, which was Matsuo. Um so I asked her what
she wanted to do and we decided to combine our last
names to falls um because you know, we thought that
would represent both of us um because I changed my name
and you know going through that name changing proc
really opened my eyes to what I didn't know as as a man,
you know as a man, I never thought I would change my
name because changing, changing my name is time
consuming. It takes a lot of work and uh I just didn't
think it was right to expect one gender to go through
that just because they were born that way. So I
actually wrote a book about it. It's called a two
grenade. Um but yeah that really changed the way I
think about I guess gender roles and when you took
parental leave, it was after the birth of your first
child. What was that like for you What did you learn in
that time off in bonding with your child and your
family I think the biggest lesson that I learned is
childcare is it's a lot of work and you know it's and
it's so important, right And it's um and it's unpaid as
well and you know, I didn't know how um I knew it was
important but I honestly didn't know how much work it
takes to you know, take care of a baby, a human being.
So now I value so much um as much as paid work as well.
And you know I used to think and I didn't think that
way because I had never experienced it and uh you know
I had always thought you know I did maybe I didn't have
to do as much of it because I was born a man and I was
raised a man and I just didn't really challenge my
to think that way. But going through that experien
evaluate so much and it's it's so important and men's
involvement. Father's involveme in childcare is super
crucial. You've worked both in the US and in Japan
could a model like Japan's ever work here in the United
States. I hope so. I hope so. I know that U.S. Is one
of very few countries in the world that doesn't offer
paid parental leave. Um So I think creating a system
that allows all parents uh to take some sort of
parental paid parental leave is a start um And also
creating a culture for all parents to take it,
especially fathers to take it I think that's the second
thing. So Japan actually does have a very generous
parental leave system for both mothers and fathers. Um
Both mothers and fathers can actually pick up to 12
months of paid leave. Um but while 83% of mothers take
it, only 12 12.6% of fathers took it last year, whic
is a huge improvement considering only 77% of fathers
to get in 2020. Um but there's, I feel like I still
feel like there's a huge gap between, you know, mothers
and fathers And also over 80% of men entering the
workforce here in Japan say they want to take parental
leave. So you know, 80% of men wanting to take parental
leave and 12% of men actually taking a huge gap. Um so
I think it's a cultural cultural thing um and we need
to create a culture that encourages men to take it
because it's important for their mental health,
obviously Children's health. Um you know, I think it's
good for the business and it's good for society, so
we'll expand on that for me for a minute because how do
we go about creating that cultu I I think that is a
critical component right There are a lot of european
countries that really do support parents, Both moms and
dads to take that parental leave. That's clearly
case over there in Japan. What about here in America,
what would be your views on how we go about creating
that culture. Um I think, you know, it's just showing
the data and all of the benefits of people taking
parental leave. So um it benefits, it benefited me
because it gave me a new perspective. Um and you kno
just spending time with my, with my son, it definitely
gave me more life satisfaction and I think that's um
it's hard to measure. Um but I know that most fathers
who took parental leave felt that way as well. Um and
also benefits the relationship, whoever your part
might be. It reduces the postpartum depression for f
the mother when the mother's partner takes that
parental leave as well. And it's shown that, you know,
it benefits organizations busin as well because um
companies that offer parental leave paid parental leave
to their employees. I think mos of them like up to 70%
of them say, they. they saw an increasing employee
morale and also a pro productivity as well. Okay, sho
matsuo post, thank you so much for coming on the y with
us and joining us all the way from Japan and really,
really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for
having me Still ahead on the white companies are under