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Claire Cain Miller provides this exceptional account of the ways lack of family friendly and maternity leave policies is hurting not just women in America, but America's economic and technological progress. Strangely one hears little about how the lack of paid leave for women for maternity and other reasons, even as it hurts economic growth with the lower participation of women in the labor force. This is being vigorously discussed in Germany and Japan with calls for more family friendly workplace policies and more child care facilities to encourage women to join the workplace or continue working and pursuing careers. This happens when the overall labor force participation rate for women and men in the U.S. is declining, making this an important issue. Equally significant is that this reduces the contribution women can make to technological and scientific progress, and productivity improvements, because 59% of higher education degress are now going to women. The case of a Toshiba research engineer who was able to tackle a problem critical to development of the next generation of television technologies after Toshiba let her continue in her research role with friendly maternity leave policy, is an example of the kind of technical progress lost to the economy without such policy in Japan or in the U.S. See the link for Toshiba. Miller provides the example of Google, where attrition for women employees dropped by 50% with family friendly maternity leave policies. For Google, Toshiba, and other companies with women having advanced degrees the cost of hiring a new employee or making up for the loss of losing valuable women employees is significant. The U.S. is the only developed country without paid maternity leave. Only 59% of workers say their employers offer them paid maternity leave. California is the first state in the U.S. to offer paid parental leave. ...

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says president Biden's $2 trillion plan for workers and families is aform of modern supply side economics. Where the old supply side economics failed with deregulation causing environmental damage and tax cuts on capital did not achieve promised gains, she says the new "modern supply side economics seeks to increase economic growth by boosting labor supply and raising productivity, while reducing economic inequality and environmental damage." Biden plan seeks to use common sense ideas that are more likely to work by investing in education, healthcare, child care, helping more women be productive in the workplace and tapping into their skills, investing in social cohesion essential for democracy by giving all sections of the people better opportunity for a better life, and creating a ground for fairness in taxes to finance the public infrastructure that will make the US a leading economy in the world that serves all its people. In that sense it is even wider and deeper in both intent and purpose than any term such as supply side economics that economists and politicians use. ...

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The basics that promote health and productivity in the workplace. Kinds of boss behaviour that destroys productive work and relationships- lack of close rapport and face to face discussions, lack of good directions and feedback, loud behaviours and too short responses, not enough time to get the job done right.

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This story about companies in Australia that have tried a four day week shows employees using two mini weeks working Monday and Tuesday, taking off Wednesday and back to work for Thursday and Friday. It shows employees planning their Mondays and Tuesday miniweek in such a way that they can handle important work and meetings ahead of time. They come back recharged and renewed on Thursday, with Wednesday as the day to break up the work week in two. This has increased productivity at these companies. This is also a useful idea for older employees who work part time and work past usual retirement ages of 60 or 65 years as longevity increases in many countries. This enables retaining the vast experience of older workers in the workplace and promoting the health of older workers by keeping them active. As Japan, the U.S. and Europe and even China become aging societies this is becoming ever more important.  For worker on five day weeks this offers creative ideas to have a four and half day week giving workers a morning off or an afternoon off to recharge with sports or recreation activity or exercize, then coming back to work recharged in the afternoon. Other variations can also be used which promote productivity and employee satisfaction to get more of the most valuable work done more effectively and with enthusiasm, pushing less important work and time wasting out of the way. Employees generally would take charge of their work day and come up with creative and efficient ways of organizing their mini work weeks. ...

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Elsa Fornero is an economics professor who is Labor Minister in the government of Mario Monti. After several decades Italy has finally tackled the much needed changes to the 1970 Workers' Charter that forms the basis of Italy's labor laws. The Charter protected workers jobs but was designed during a different period and had long since lost its relevance in a modern economy. The laws led to Italy losing its competitiveness and entrenched small family firms in the economy. The new labor law protects the individual instead of jobs, by increasing the safety net to cover unemployed workers for shorter periods and lower benefits, and makes it possible for firms to layoff employees for economic reasons. Fornero says Italians need to recognize that work is not a right to be enshrined in laws but something that is earned through hard work. Article 18 of the Worker's Charter was originally intended to remove discriminatory practices in the workplace, but was enlarged to provide blanket protections to workers so that companies could not fire workers and avoided hiring. Under the new law discrimination is illegal, but now companies can layoff employees for economc reasons and not face long legal disputes and be forced to rehire the workers. The new law will increase productivity says Marcello Giustiniani, a labor specialist at Milan law firm Nonelli, Erede & Pappalardo. Italy's productivity gap with Germany has widened to over 30% since the introduction of the euro. The ASPI, new unemployment insurance plan, goes into effect in 2013, older programs will be phased out by 2017, giving time for the culture change in Italy for workers and business. Another major change is designed to help 2 million workers earning less than 18,000 euros. Businesses will have to give these workers proper contracts. Fornero's effort to tackle the pension system also includes linking retirement checks to how much is contributed over the lifetime- a practice common in other countries- not the final and highest salary. This simple change was not not implemented by 10 governments since a law was passed in 1995, showing why the Monti government was needed to get things done....

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Women do twice as much of the caregiving for elderly parents and small children as men. About 41% of mothers say this makes it harder for them as working parents. About 20% of the female workforce in U.S. is giving elderly care. This adds up to more stress, decreased working hours, decreased income, needing leave of absence, and missing promotions or training. Only 14% of working people in the U.S. have even one day of paid leave to care for a new baby or seriously sick family member- a startling statistic for America, showing lack of family friendly policies at most companies.

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Anne- Marie Slaughter's new book Unfinished Business is reviewed by Laura Vanderkam. Ms. Slaughter says in her new book that part of the unfinished business for women in the workplace is to give women time for child care duties in a way that does not hurt their careers. Anne Marie makes the case on the grounds that this is a social bias. Yet there are many reasons beyond simple fairness, and the value of parental work. Women can contribute to society in different ways than men. For example reports show women are more interested in using technical skills in ways that will benefit developing countries. Women bring a different perspective than men. Women are also prominent in scientific fields. For this contribution to grow and enrich society it can be enlarged by giving women proper benefit for maternity leave, and preserving the ability to come back and contribute in the same way after the maternity leave period is over. Toshiba did this for a female engineer who had made significant contributions in the technical field. Doing this would also help in other ways. It could make it more attractive for women to have kids knowing it will not hurt their careers or the careers of their partners. This is needed in western societies with falling birthrates and declining number of young people to support larger numbers of older people....

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A new mom discusses maternity leave in her native Germany compared to maternity leave in the U.S.

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Members of the U.S. Congress lead a lousy life with life split between the capital and their home state location, most are weekend dads or moms. This makes them less likely to grasp the issues of work-life balance and the issues of parenting faced by average working families or couples with both parents working, says this essay in Politico magazine. This is true also of understanding issues facing women and mothers. Hard to believe but this report points out that Congress in the U.S. does not have a family friendly leave policy and no restroom for women till 2011 on the floor of the House. Similar issues face women in Japan and other countries for women in parliament. Former Speaker Ryan says he is tired of being a "weekend Dad." Senator Biden, former vice president says of his commute from Delaware to Washington D.C., he realized that "a child has a thought he wants to share and 12-18 hours later its gone, gone, gone." ...

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Netflix offers paid parental leave for upto 1 year in a fluid arrangement that lets parents decide how they want to do it, when they want to return to work, and when to take time off. This offers the flexibility to do this without having to worry about work or finances, a stated goal of the company.

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Only 13% of mothers in the workforce have access to paid leave in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 25% of working mothers in the U.S. return to work in 2 weeks.

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Claire Cain Miller points to the high cost of child care in the U.S. and the benefits to society from providing affordable child care. It has a high impact on women's employment and incomes, and ability to pursue opportunities in education and career. The effect on children especially for low income families is enormous. Average cost for child care in the U.S. is by one estimate $16,514. The higher the quality of care in early years the better the outcomes are for children in education, careers, income, and later in life.

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Women executives at a panel discussion sponsored by Columbia Universiy in New York, in Dec. 2014, provide ideas for getting more women in Tech fields. Ideas include, mentoring, with early education exposure to technology careers- as early as middle school. One executive says she takes in 150 female high school students to Washington D.C. for leadership training. Other ideas are to turn maternity leave into a positive feature of women's lives by letting women who do well keep their duties by delegating them to others while they are away, and making a smooth pathway back to work full time. The suggestion is to allow a gradual transition to ramp back up to full time work, and allow flexible hours, working from home. In daily work women are encouraged to look for partnerships with other areas of the organization for getting results, and being sensitive to which areas of the organization they need to build support in.

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A number of issues came up at the Women20 Summit in Berlin. Annette Niederfranke, Director of the International Labor Organization, brought up the issue of family reconciliation as "one of the toughest challenges for working women worldwide," that in order to meet obligations women tended to work in "non standard forms of employment and in part time work linked to lower wages, lower social security, lower benefits, and fewer training possibilities." Childcare was also an issue that was prominent considering the lack of adequate childcare in many countries including in the European Union. With responsibilities for the elderly, babies, and small children women tend to be in the workforce for shorter periods leading to men taking up many of the higher positions. Angela Merkel pointed out that Gemany tended to take a narrow view of professions available to girls, saying- "So it is very very important that we take a broader view of things while girls are still at school." Merkel also supports a Africa compact that would help women set up small and middle size businesses in poor countries. The "Digital" aspects of this and other efforts for women were a major topic being discussed. One idea that came up was that more cooperation from men was needed to make things happen. This is the third Women20 Summit after ones in Turkey and China, and a sense of momentum was felt by women. ...