Women With The Most Education Also Get The Most Maternity Leave
LatestThe U.S. Census Bureau recently released a report on employment and parental leave for first-time mothers, showing how little time women now take off when they have kids. The data also show that the least-educated women in America have the least access to paid leave.
The mean age at first birth is now 25 years. And while a few decades ago the norm was for women to quit work upon getting pregnant, from 2006 to 2008, 56.1% of women worked full time during their pregnancy, leaving work only as the due date approaches. However, this varies widely by educational level, largely because women with the lowest levels of education are less likely to be working regardless.
The graph on the left shows how many months before the birth working women left their work; the graph on the right shows how many months after the birth they returned. As we see, over time women have stayed at their paid jobs longer and returned more quickly.