Half of women who take a maternity leave from work aren't compensated for it. What's your opinion, do you think women should be paid during their maternity leave?

Depends on how much vacation and sick-leave time you've accrued, just like with any other health related issue that requires a leave of absence time from work. However much you've saved up is what you are/should be allowed to take, thus getting reimbursed for that amount of time. Beyond that, you either go back to work, or lose pay if you haven't enough time in your "bank". At least that's how it is where I work.

Hyacinth Girl wrote:

Depends on how much vacation and sick-leave time you've accrued, just like with any other health related issue that requires a leave of absence time from work. However much you've saved up is what you are/should be allowed to take, thus getting reimbursed for that amount of time. Beyond that, you either go back to work, or lose pay if you haven't enough time in your "bank". At least that's how it is where I work.

That is usually how it is and I think that is the legal test. If women got special consideration (compensation while not at work) because of maternity, then men would likely challenge it in court as gender favoritism. The EEOC probably already addresses this.

Maternity leave without pay probably comes under FMLA which allows all workers to take extended time off for family matters.

with HG & Shale

No. If you accrue the time, then use it. If nit, they should at least have a job to go back to.

Opa Shale wrote:

That is usually how it is and I think that is the legal test. If women got special consideration (compensation while not at work) because of maternity, then men would likely challenge it in court as gender favoritism. The EEOC probably already addresses this.

Maternity leave without pay probably comes under FMLA which allows all workers to take extended time off for family matters.

Even with FMLA, they still get you, because that "time" comes out of a bank for that, too. Again, at least it does where I work. I've done FMLA's for myself for all those surgeries I had, as well as an intermittant one for when my daughter was in the worst part of all her seizure episodes, and it does get subtracted out of the time you've saved up--they just can't penalize you for using it with an FMLA. If you use up all your FMLA time, then it goes into long term disability, but hopefully a maternity leave wouldn't be that drastic!

If the company offers a percent of wages due to offering disability pay, then they should get it. If not, they should use vacation and eat the rest of the time off.