Only Four Countries do not Provide for Paid Parental Leave.

While researching for this article, I ran across a 2013 NYT piece on Pew’s finding that in 40% of U.S. families the sole or primary earner is the Mom. In a quarter of married households, the woman is the sole or primary wage earner.

I was surprised recently when I learned that almost every country has federal laws that require paid parental leave.  Apparently, there are only four that do not.  They are Suriname, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and The United States.  I’m including here the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each country and their Gini coefficient, both of which seem relevant for considering the U.S. position on this issue.

Suriname Per Capita GDP: $16,623 Gini: 52.9	Lesotho Per Capita GDP: $1,091 Gini: 54.2
Papua New Guinea Per Capita GDP: $2,517 Gini: 50.9	United States Per capita GDP: $57,220 Gini: 40.8

The Gini coefficient is a mathematical measure of a nation’s wealth distribution. The lower the value, the more equitable their economy. Higher values indicate an economy that favors people who are already wealthy at the expense of the poor.  

Here is a list of the eleven top ten developed countries with their Gini indexes. Canada and the U.S. are tied for #10. The graph compares the wealth distribution of these eleven countries by their standard deviations from the mean.

 

Gini Index 1. Norway 23.5 2. Australia 33.6 3. Switzerland 29.5 4. Germany 30.7 5. Denmark 27.5 6. Singapore 46.4 7. Netherlands 26.2 8. Ireland 30.0 9. Iceland 24.0 10. Canada 33.7 10. United States 40.8