The Parental Leave Rollback Nobody Is Talking About (But Everyone Should Be)
This year as we celebrated Mother's Day, and all around the internet I read the headlines: celebrating all that moms do and thanking them. At this point, many organizations and individuals recognize that much of the work and care mothers provide is often unpaid, and the headlines and posts called that out as well: "to moms - and to doing the job that has no days off, no sick days, etc." You get the picture.
Here's my challenge with those posts: on the one hand, they're right: the job of mom never ends. You are on call 24/7. There are no vacation, no sick days. You are there everyday because your family needs you. On the other hand, many organizations are actively making it harder to be a working parent by stripping away the very benefits that make it possible to show up for both your family and your job.
And the quiet part that doesn't make it into the Mother's Day posts? Companies have a choice: to either invest in their working parents or not. Right now, some are choosing to divest.
Companies like Deloitte and Zoom have announced reductions in their parental leave benefits, stripping weeks from policies that working parents were counting on. The timing couldn't be more (or less perfect): sandwiched right in between Women's Equal Pay Day (March 26th), and Mother's Day. Because nothing says, we are committed to equity, closing the pay gap, and supporting working parents like cutting benefits that quite literally give them the time and money to do just that.
I wish I could say this was surprising. It isn't.
Since 2020, the share of employers offering paid maternity leave dropped from 53% to 35%. Paid paternity leave fell from 44% to 27% in that same window. This isn't a 2026 trend. It's a pattern I watched build for 12 years from the inside, designing and auditing these very policies for employers across the country. Paid leave gets treated as a perk to cut when budgets tighten, rather than the foundational workforce investment the data proves it to be.
And the data on what's actually at stake couldn't be clearer.
Women with access to paid leave are significantly more likely to return to their pre-leave employerand maintain their pre-leave wages, building the tenure and earnings trajectory that closes the pay gap over time.
Women with access to at least 12 weeks of leave have better mental health outcomes compared to women who return to work before 12 weeks postpartum face an increased risk of postpartum depression.
When parents all parents have access to paid leave, women are more likely to return to work, thus closing the gender wage gap.
Let me be clear: the minimum should be 12 weeks of fully paid bonding leave for all parents.
FMLA alone doesn't cut because the math doesn't math. While FMLA entitles eligible parents to 12 weeks of job-protected leave, job-protected is not the same as paid. If an employer's paid parental leave policy only covers 6 of those weeks, parents are left making an impossible calculation: drain their sick days, burn through vacation time, or go without pay. And if you opt to go without pay, then families are forced to make hard financial decisions. In fact, 74% of women would drain their savings on a standard 8-week unpaid leave and more than half would take on credit card debt they'd otherwise avoid.
For most working families, going without pay isn't a choice. It's a financial crisis. When leave is neither fully paid nor long enough, women are asked to make a choice between two impossible/less-than-ideal options: stay home and lose income you can't recover, or go back before your body and mind are ready and risk your health in the process.
Here's the part we need organizations to understand and own: We are building systems that make it inevitable for working parents, especially working mothers, to fail, and then act surprised when they leave the workforce.
We can do better. And there are concrete places to start.
If you're a working parent: Know what you're actually entitled to. Your employer's policy, your state's paid leave program, short-term disability, and FMLA protections can work together to protect more of your income and time than you might realize.
If you're an HR leader or people manager: Now is the time to audit your leave policies, not just what's written, but who's actually using them and why some employees aren't. A policy that exists on paper but feels inaccessible in practice isn't a benefit. It's a liability.
If you're a business leader making budget decisions: The research is unambiguous. Paid leave reduces turnover, improves productivity, and costs far less than replacing the employees who leave because they couldn't afford to stay. This is an investment, not a line item.
And if you're a lawmaker: the patchwork of state programs is progress, but it is not a substitute for a federal standard that covers every worker, in every state, regardless of employer size or zip code.
We've been having this conversation for decades. The cost of inaction keeps compounding, in wages lost, in families stretched thin, in talent walking out the door.
What's one thing your employer does, or doesn't do, around paid leave that has shaped your experience as a working parent or caregiver? I'd genuinely like to hear it.
