General poll. Do you know that many women who actually quit and didn't return at all after a paid maternity leave?
I don't actually know a single one. I know plenty of women, myself included, who went back after a paid maternity leave and quit within the first year back to pursue different opportunities that were more family friendly. But I don't know anyone who took the paid leave and didn't go back at all.
I only know one, and that includes all of the women who I've worked with to administer their FMLA/STD for maternity leave over the years. And I feel like she doesn't really count, since she really left because her husband happened to get a job in another state while she was on leave.
Now, to be fair, I've almost always worked in fairly male dominated industries, and when I didn't, most of those women couldn't afford to not come back (fairly low paying industry).
Post by liveintheville on Dec 5, 2012 15:28:57 GMT -5
Yes. But she had an agreement set up with them. She took paid maternity leave and then unpaid leave. They were aware she might not return and just asked that she inform them by x date.
I know lots of women who quit toward or at the end of their maternity leaves. I do not know whether they all received paid leave and whether any of them paid it back. I know a couple attorneys in my firm who did not come back from leave and received paid leave. I am assuming that they did not pay back the money, but I have never asked.
It was common when I worked in healthcare and 98% of my co-workers were women. I would say a good 50% of them never came back. The retention in long term care is ridiculous anyways so I really don't find it all that surprising. It's like a revolving door. I work with mostly men now, so there's not much of an issue.
ETA: I missed the paid maternity leave thing...none of the people I know were on paid maternity leave.
yes, half of the women I've known have done this. they changed their minds after being home, or at least that's what they told me. I know one had to pay money back.
I can think of one friend - she had twins in December, stayed out on mat leave through the rest of the school year, and then decided in August not to go back to her teaching job.
I don't know the specifics of her paid leave, but I think it's typical that at least part of it was paid. She taught in a public school.
I don't know anyone that's purposely done that either. All my friends who said they were going back did. My best friend decided after her youngest was two that she wanted a third and knew she wouldn't work after that, so she quit then, before she was even pregnant.
I was laid off when I was 4 months pregnant. At the time I was so, so angry because I didn't even have the option to try and work something out with my employer. They made my decision for me. However, when I look at it from their perspective, I don't blame them. I traveled a lot in my role and so did/does my husband for his job. They had to assume I was going to ask for a change in role since someone was going to need to be at home in the evening and my DH was the breadwinner (although not by much.. but I would have asked for a transition to an inside, non-traveling role.)
With the horrible turn in the market in 2010 leading to them having to lay off a developer, I made the most sense. I was a liability - someone they couldn't count on to be in the same role in a year no matter what, so compared to the others objectively, I was the easiest choice (even though I still maintain it should have been the guy who was caught treating agents to strip clubs and putting it on his company credit card, but I digress...) It still totally sucked.
I agree with what others have said in the previous thread - the American system is so messed up. It causes women who want to do the right thing and be honest to risk their family's potential well being in doing so. And at the same time, it sets women as a whole back when some of us aren't even hired or are the first in the chopping block when we could potentially procreate. And on top of it all, those of us that do decide they want some sort of hybrid, family friendly option for continuing to work but not at the capacity they once did often find that it doesn't exist. All or nothing.
I'm taking a few years to have little ones, then I'm going back to work for a competitor and I'm getting my accounts back
Yes, my sister, but with their blessing. They were like "here's your maternity leave, have a nice life." I actually didn't think that was too uncommon until I read about it here.
I realized one in our CA office--there employees have to be paid 50% of salary for FMLA I think so that did kind of suck for the company.
And my BFF did--she really couldn't decide if she wanted to come back or not. I'm sure they didn't have paid leave so it wasn' that big of a deal.
One gal in my old team got a new job so she only came back for 2 weeks.
In my team everyone has come back to work. It would suck if they took leave and didn't tell us they weren't coming back because we would lose 6-12 weeks of revenue because we are paid per head and that is too short a time to get a contractor unless we know pregnancies of multiple employees will run into each other (sometimes they do).