Maven Family Leave Challenge - Parental Leave Report
About this project
As part of Women's History Month in the United States, my company wrote an article about maternity leave policies around the business world and they needed me to create an impactful visual using the data I collected.
Maternity leave refers to the period of time that a new mother takes off from work following the birth of her baby. Many companies have similar policies for fathers, which allow for paternity leave. Maternity leave is usually created from a variety of benefits that include sick leave, vacation, holiday time, personal days, short-term disability and unpaid family leave time.
Maternity leave is not only for a mother, there is also the term paternity leave or leave for fathers. Paternity leave is an employee benefit granted to expectant husbands, partners of pregnant women, surrogate fathers, or a person matched with a child for adoption. This leave ensures a period of weeks or months where a new father is allowed to stay home and bond with his partner and new child.
Why is paid parental leave so important?
Paid time off is necessary for many reasons. Pregnant and parenting people need time to recover after pregnancy and birth, care for and bond with a newborn (including, for most, to establish breastfeeding), adjust to changing family dynamics, and obtain postpartum and well-child care. Moreover, the need for paid leave includes people who are recovering from stillbirth, miscarriage, and other pregnancy complications. Paid leave is also critical for three out of four people who take leave each year for reasons other than maternity or paternity care. Other reasons include caring for other family members or addressing their own serious health conditions.
The goal of the project was to answer these two questions:
Which industry category has the longest average parental leave week?
Which company has the most parental leave in total?
Key Insights
The Philanthropy industry category provides mothers with an average of 22.4 weeks of full-paid leave.
Average weeks of unpaid maternity leave were led by the Printing industry category.
The difference in average weeks of paid paternity leave among the top five industry categories below is not that great.
The Pharmacies & drug stores industry category gives a father an average of 8 weeks of leave without full pay.
*This project is part of my participation in the Maven Family Leave Challenge
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