Should the United States require companies to provide paid maternity leave? Should it assist them to do so?

What about paternity leave?

YEARS AGO, THE FAMOUS ECONOMIST PAUL Samuelson quipped that “women are just men with less money.” He was referring to the financially dependent position of women at that time, when they were unlikely to be employed outside the home and, if they were, were likely to earn substantially less than men. That has now changed for the better. Although women have yet to achieve full equity at the highest levels of business, they constitute nearly half the U.S. workforce, and their pay is not so very far behind that of men. Moreover, with the decline of manufacturing and the growing importance of the service sector in today’s economy, brain power matters more than brawn. Here women can compete as well as men, and they have proved their value to employers over and over again. In fact, they now outnumber men in professional and managerial positions.
And with women continuing to graduate from college at a higher rate and in greater numbers than men, their future looks bright.