Groundwork Ohio is a statewide nonprofit public-policy research and advocacy organization that supports high-quality early learning and healthy development strategies for kids and has been a strong advocate for improving access and funding for early childhood education and child care.
In an effort that began in January with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Groundwork Ohio studied the impact of paid leave using data and research, feedback from families and stakeholders across the state.
Credit: Alexis Larsen
Credit: Alexis Larsen
While federal law already requires up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for certain family and medical issues, the report argues that a comprehensive paid family leave policy in Ohio would improve the health of mother and child, strengthen economic support for families, help keep women in the workforce and boost the state economy.
The report also acknowledges that business leaders, particularly at small companies, may be concerned about the cost of paid family leave and workforce disruptions when parents are absent.
“We applaud the research on paid family leave done by Groundwork Ohio, and their willingness to engage the business community in these efforts,” said Stephanie Keinath, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce. “We’re particularly interested in learning from states that have implemented voluntary paid family leave policies, as we strongly support maintaining the flexibility of employers to create benefits policies that best meet the needs of their workforce.”
Credit: Caroline Williams
Credit: Caroline Williams
The need for paid leave policies has been talked about in the past and should be discussed more, said state Rep. Tom Young, R-Washington Twp. But ultimately businesses are the ones in the best position to decide what their companies need to do to attract and keep workers, and some already do offer that benefit, he said.
“So forcing it on people with a mandate is not something I do believe would pass the (Ohio) House or the Senate,” Young said.
State Rep. Willis E. Blackshear, Jr., D-Dayton, who will become a state senator in 2025, supports adding a state mandate for paid family leave and setting “reasonable limits” on the size of businesses that would be required to follow the mandate.
“We need to support our workforce and foremost we need to support families. Ohio has a high infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate, especially among black women and infants,” Blackshear said. “Paid family leave would ensure that families have the ability to provide for their children without having to risk losing their job or going without income for long periods of time.”
He is unsure whether such a law could pass in the Republican-dominated legislature but he said a family leave policy could draw people into Ohio’s workforce.
“While the focus in recent years has been to attract large companies to Ohio, we need to also recognize that we need to attract and maintain our workforce here in Ohio,” Blackshear said. “By supporting policies that help working families, we are making Ohio a more desirable place to live.”
The benefits of paid parental leave
Infants whose mothers have paid leave are more likely to breastfeed, gaining benefits like improved digestive and immune system functioning and a decreased likelihood of asthma, ear infections, gastrointestinal infections and childhood obesity, according to the report.
And research indicates an association between length of leave and decreased postpartum depressive symptoms in mothers, the report said.
Parental leave that includes fathers also allows for closer bonding with newborns.
Paid leave would financially help Ohio parents, who’ve just borne the cost of childbirth and all the expenses that come with a new baby, avoid the additional cost of unpaid time off in a state where four weeks of unpaid leave costs a full-time worker about $3,100 in lost income, the report said.
Paid leave also assists parents challenged by the high cost of child care, which is particularly expensive for infants.
“Paid family leave is closely linked with lack of affordable child care in Ohio, where child care access disparities are especially pronounced for Black and Hispanic families,” the report said. “Recent data shows that only 4.3 percent of low- and moderate-income children ages 0-2 received child care subsidies to offset cost burdens.”
Paid family leave helps the economy by making it easier for women to enter and remain in the workforce. Keeping women in the labor force helps businesses, which have long struggled to fill jobs with a skilled workforce, the report said. That also increases overall wages and state tax revenues.
In addition, paid leave reduces the need for public assistance to families when a parent must stop working to care for a child, the report said.
“Employers with supportive paid leave policies and greater flexibility for birthing mothers not only promote diminishment of gender wage gaps, but increase women’s labor market participation by 6 percentage points in the first year of a birth, and 20-50 percent within 5 years after a birth,” the report said.
Federal law mandates unpaid leave
Federal law requires that workers have access to up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave from work for certain family and medical reasons, including childbirth, the employee’s serious health condition or to care for the employee’s spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition.
Known as the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, the law does not require companies to pay employees who use the leave time.
Credit: Susan Walsh
Credit: Susan Walsh
It applies only to employers with 50 employees or more. Workers must be employed at the company or organization for at least one year to be eligible and have worked at least 1,250 hours in the last year, according to the report.
Each year 8.4 million people, or 5.3% of eligible workers, use FMLA, the report said.
Ohio is not among the twenty-one states and the District of Columbia that have enacted paid leave laws, which vary as far as requirements and funding. The Ohio legislature did approve paid family leave for state employees in 1997, the report said.
In 2015 Dayton became the first major Ohio city to offer paid parental leave to city employees, and soon after Cincinnati and Columbus added similar policies, the report said. But under a law passed in 2016, cities and counties in Ohio are not allowed to require employers to provide paid sick days or family leave at a cost to the employer, the report said.
A company or organization’s employees may have access to other types of leave and some employers do offer paid family leave or allow people to use paid sick leave or short-term disability coverage. But lack of financial resources lead nearly 23% of women to return to the job ten days after giving birth, according to the report.
Without a mandatory paid family and medical leave policy, the report said, “U.S. workers are likely to repurpose earned vacation or sick time for family and healthcare reasons, leading to increased burnout, turnover, and poorer mental health outcomes.”
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