The business case to support parents is overwhelming. Policies supporting parents are critical to recruiting new – and retaining existing – workers, especially in a tight labor market, not to mention boosted worker productivity. A recent report from Moms First and BCG suggests that companies that strategically allocate resources to childcare benefits are seeing a return on investment of 90% to 425%.
Year after year the Just Capital polling highlights that the American public wants companies to prioritize their workers, specifically by providing benefits and work-life balance among the top five issues. In fact, a survey of working mothers further connects the dots between receiving more parental leave and being more satisfied at their workplace.
As a result, we see leading business executives prioritize these policies. In a Just Capital interview with Morgan Stanley Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Stark, he said paid parental leave “has low direct costs” and “a significant impact in terms of improving productivity, retention, and employee morale.”
We are also seeing companies realize the benefit of more publicly offering benefits geared towards families and caregivers. From 2023 to 2024, disclosure of paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers increased by seven and eight percentage points, respectively.
So what employers lead the pack with their policies in 2024? Just Capital analyzed the policies and practices of the Russell 1000 and five came to the forefront.
You can find more information about corporate practices and policies like those elevated here in the latest version of our Just Jobs Scorecard, a data-driven interactive tool companies can use to assess their performance and transparency on key job quality practices and worker policies.
In the meantime, check out the full list, as well as NBC News’ coverage of it, below.
If you’re a corporate leader, we invite you to unpack your company’s performance in the 2024 Rankings and/or the Just Jobs Scorecard, gain insights into how to improve on the issues that matter most to the American public, and/or learn how to engage with Just to take action to support worker well-being though the Corporate Impact Lab. Please reach out to corpengage@justcapital.com.
Ranked 2nd in the Commercial Support Services industry in the annual Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies
The Benefits:
Ranked 1st in the Transaction Processing industry in the annual Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies
Ranked 2nd in the Clothing & Accessories industry in the annual Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies
The Benefits:
Ranked 5th in the Capital Markets industry in the annual Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies
The Benefits:
Ranked 14th in the Software industry in the annual Rankings of America’s Most Just Companies
The Benefits:
Methodology note: All of these companies exemplify leading practice by offering inclusive paid parental leave for 20 or more weeks to both primary and secondary caregivers, in addition to offering emergency backup and subsidized routine dependent care policies.
In the U.S., there is currently no federally mandated paid sick leave, despite the vast majority of countries (an estimated 179 of 193) ensuring some form of paid leave for workers in need. Paid sick leave policies are often left in the hands of state and local governments: as of June 2023, 15 states, four counties, and 17 cities have or will soon enact laws regarding paid sick leave to meet the needs of their communities.
In the absence of legislation for all Americans, companies have stepped in, with 77% of workers in private industry able to access paid sick leave as of February 2023. However, nearly 28 million workers still do not have access and just 51% of part-time private industry workers had access compared to 86% of full-time workers. Additionally, compared to their public sector peers who receive 11 days of paid sick leave after one year of employment, private sector workers receive just seven days on average. Perhaps most disheartening is that low-wage workers are significantly less likely to have paid sick leave compared to high-wage workers (38% vs. 96%, respectively).
In analyzing the Russell 1000 companies included in our 2023 Rankings of America’s Most JUST Companies, 28% disclose a paid sick leave policy for exempt employees as of September 2022, an increase of seven percentage points compared to the year prior. Note that this does not include paid time off policies (PTO), paid vacation, short-term disability leave, or unpaid leave through the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
While this increase in disclosure is a positive sign, only 9% of companies disclose the number of days of paid sick leave they provide. This is unchanged compared to the year before, suggesting that – despite renewed attention on the issue during the COVID-19 pandemic – progress on paid sick leave has stalled.
Of the 951 companies JUST Capital analyzed and ranked in 2023, 89 disclose the days of paid sick leave in their policies (meaning that 862 companies do not disclose). Of those 89 companies, six offer unlimited paid sick leave.
Excluding those six, the range of paid sick leave is 3-30 days, the mean or average is 8.3 days, the median 8 days, and the mode – or most common number of days – is 10. Looking across all companies that disclose the number of days, the majority (53 or 60% of those companies) offer less than two business weeks.
Looking across sectors, seven out of 36 industries have no companies disclosing the days of paid sick leave in their policies. These include Aerospace & Defense, Basic Resources, Clothing & Accessories, Commercial Support Services, Commercial Vehicles & Machinery, Consumer & Diversified Finance, and Food & Drug Retailers. In addition, 12 other industries have only one company disclosing.
The Banks industry leads with 12 companies disclosing (29% within industry), followed by Software (12 companies or 19%), and Pharmaceuticals (8 companies or 20%).
While tens of millions of American workers do not currently have access to paid sick leave, multiple studies show that it provides tangible benefits to companies – reducing absenteeism (absence from work) and presenteeism (working while sick), in turn increasing employee satisfaction and productivity, and lowering recruitment and turnover costs. The CDC estimates that absenteeism alone costs businesses $225.8 billion per year due to productivity losses, and one cost-benefit analysis found that while a paid sick leave law would result in a weekly cost of $6.87 per employee, that cost would be more than offset by a weekly benefit of $12.32 per employee due to higher productivity and lower turnover.
In addition, paid sick leave results in fewer occupational injuries, lower healthcare costs for employers, and better public health in general. Finally, providing paid sick leave can increase a company’s brand reputation, which positively influences a company’s market value.
Looking closer at the 89 companies that disclose the number of days in their paid sick leave policies, we identified three that stand out, offering policies that range from four weeks to unlimited: Alphabet, Axis Capital Holdings, and Advanced Micro Devices. These three companies demonstrate that paid sick leave is not a one-size-fits-all type of policy, but one that should be iterated to meet the needs of workers and company culture.
Ranked 1st in Internet and 12th overall
Alphabet recognizes “that vacation days are not the only time Googlers may need to take time away from the office,” and for that reason offers a range of “supportive leave options.” Highlighting the honor system, Alphabet offers unlimited sick time that is used at the discretion of the employee. Policy
Ranked 8th in Insurance and 135th overall
Among many other time off benefits, Axis Capital Holdings provides unlimited paid sick leave. Striving to lead its industry, Axis states that it seeks “dedication and accomplishment” from employees, which the company incentivizes through its comprehensive benefits and perks program. Policy
Ranked 8th in Semiconductors & Equipment and 128th overall
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) provides up to four weeks of paid sick time to support the well-being of its employees. This policy allows employees to take time off when they are unwell without financial consequences. The sick leave policy reflects AMD’s commitment to prioritizing employee health and ensuring a supportive work environment. Policy
In a survey conducted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, JUST Capital found that 74% of Americans agree that companies should provide at least 14 days of paid sick leave to all workers. The circumstances that yielded this strong majority may have shifted, but paid sick leave remains a strong priority for American workers. In late 2022, a massive railroad strike was narrowly avoided when Congress intervened to impose an agreement ensuring that 60% of unionized workers at major railroads now have access to paid sick leave.
Despite the clear push for stronger paid sick leave, corporate America lacks transparency on the issue – with just 9% of America’s largest companies disclosing the number of days they provide to workers, unchanged year over year. 28 million workers continue to lack access to paid leave – and many of these workers are part time, low wage, and/or service sector employees, all of which disproportionately tend to be women and people of color, further increasing racial and gender equity divides.
With paid sick leave providing a clear path toward healthier workplaces and communities, corporate leaders should consider investing in policies (if they don’t already exist) and stronger disclosure (if they do). With greater transparency comes a clearer picture of the state of paid leave today, a deeper understanding of what “good” looks like, and the ability for different stakeholders – such as investors and prospective employees – to evaluate companies and make informed decisions. Companies like Alphabet, Axis, and AMD offer a playbook for best practices, as business continues to recognize the benefits of paid sick leave.
JUST Capital, in collaboration with partners, established the Corporate Care Network to advance the well-being of workers and demonstrate the long-term value of investment in workers. The Network is committed to driving increased access to care benefits, including paid leave and flexible work policies, and highlighting leaders in the space.
If you’re interested in gaining insights into how to improve on the issues that matter most to the American public, and learning how your company can get involved in the Network, please reach out to JUST Capital impact@justcapital.com.
We also invite you to explore additional reports generated by JUST Capital’s Corporate Care Network, focused on paid leave and caregiving benefits:
Top Six Companies Leading on Paid Parental Leave in 2023
Top Companies for Working Mothers
Top Companies for Working Fathers
Spotlight on HPE’s Leading Parental Leave Policies
Morgan Stanley Chief Medical Officer on Enhanced Care Benefits
As more people in the workforce enter the “sandwich generation,” caring for their own children and older parents or relatives, access to equitable leave policies is becoming more and more desirable for employees. Despite this, only 9% of the largest U.S. companies currently offer parity of 12 weeks or more of paid parental leave to both caregivers, according to a recent JUST Capital report. In fact, research suggests that the percentage of companies offering paid parental leave has actually decreased in recent years.
One company that has prioritized its leave benefits is Morgan Stanley, which doubled down on parental leave in 2021. After analyzing results of a global employee survey and benchmarking peers, Morgan Stanley increased its parental leave to 16 weeks for all caregivers and four weeks of paid leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition, among other generous policies, such as a $75,000 maximum family building benefit to assist employees with the cost of adoption, surrogacy and fertility treatments. Previously the company offered primary caregivers 16 weeks of parental leave and non-primary caregivers six weeks of parental leave. This step forward to parity is critical to cultivating both gender and racial equity in the workplace.
JUST Capital recently spoke with Dr. David Stark, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Benefits, Analytics, and Technology Strategy, to learn more about how and why Morgan Stanley implemented its enhanced paid parental leave policy, as well as the impact on its workforce and company as a whole.
You increased your paid parental leave to 16 weeks for all caregivers – what prompted you to make this level of investment?
We made this change back in 2021. So, recall that the pandemic led to the caregiving crisis. We were seeing people leaving the workforce to take care of their kids or their parents or others in the home. This is on top of, you know, the “sandwich generation” being an issue, and I’m a part of that myself. We know that women were disproportionately being taken out of the workforce to shoulder those [caregiving] burdens. We were recognizing all of that. Additionally, in 2021, we did a global employee benefits survey, which was a really detailed and eye-opening survey. Overall, the vast majority of our employees were very happy with their benefits, but paid parental leave and family support were areas that were highlighted as opportunities for improvement. In fact, paid parental leave was the top driver that could promote increased satisfaction relative to other potential design changes we were considering.
The pandemic, the external environment, and our own surveying led us to benchmark our family support benefits against our peers, and then decide to prioritize the [family support] space for focus. What we learned is that our paid parental leave benefit had fallen behind our peers.
What did the progression of planning and rolling out of this benefit look like?
Using all of the [survey and benchmark insights], we developed a multi-year roadmap to enhance our family benefits – not just parental leave, but other support benefits. We addressed paid parental leave first. We thought that was where we could have the most significant impact.
We also looked for some quick wins that we could achieve relatively easily. For example, we put in place NICU and stillbirth leaves, and we eliminated a one year of service term requirement. We did that immediately while we took a little bit more time to redesign and socialize the more extensive expansion of parental leave enhancement. We also enhanced our family building benefit. We already had a pretty generous fertility benefit ($30,000 lifetime benefit) to support fertility regardless of infertility diagnosis, but we wanted to make that benefit more holistic. We expanded the benefit to provide a $75,000 lifetime maximum to support family-building across adoption, surrogacy, and fertility.
We expanded our paid parental leave to provide 16 weeks across the board for all parents, regardless of primary/non-primary [parent] and gender. In the U.S., we provide an additional six to eight weeks of disability leave for birth parents, resulting in a total of 22 to 24 weeks of parental leave.
How did you build the case for that level of support? What hurdles did you need to overcome?
Management was generally supportive of the change. It was obviously important to socialize the change within each of our business units, since the extended duration would have distinct and nuanced impacts on their respective organizations, resulting in the need to backfill roles and potentially impacting performance measures. This was actually happening amid a broader backdrop of the “great reshuffling” or the “great resignation.” James Gorman, our CEO, made a call to his operating committee at an off-site meeting that he felt strongly that we needed to renew the social contract with our workforce. That [prioritization] led to a very holistic look across the benefits space.
The general environment was very supportive of making these changes. It was viewed as an investment in maternal and infant health, long-term retention, and productivity upon returning to work. Those [investments] were weighed very favorably against the obvious, but relatively small, short-term issue of needing to backfill [roles held by employees on leave].
How do you respond to executives who say, paid parental leave is nice, but we can’t expand benefits in this economy?
Enhancing parental leave has low direct costs. It has a significant impact in terms of improving productivity, retention, and employee morale. Anecdotally, the feedback that we get from employees who’ve had the time to bond with their child, recover from giving birth, and support their partner in recovering from giving birth, is that [access to paid time] buys loyalty. And that’s almost immeasurable relative to the cost. It’s part of long-term thinking.
Oftentimes, frontline workers are not offered the same benefits as their corporate peers. How are you supporting not only corporate employees, but hourly employees or contract employees when it comes to parental leave?
Employees who work 20 hours or more, whether they’re hourly workers or salaried, are eligible for a full suite of benefits, and that includes paid parental leave.
As a global business, how do you approach benefits across different countries and territories?
That’s the fun part. Increasingly, through the pandemic and beyond, we have felt the need to provide more consistency globally across the board. We’ve actually worked very hard to first understand: What are the policies in the 40 countries where we operate? What’s the regulatory environment across all of our markets? What are local practices? And then we worked to establish, in this case, a global minimum standard to ensure consistency. That led to the 16 weeks [of paid parental leave] as a floor for all employees, and in certain markets, where regulations or local practices allow for more leave, we do that.
As a more general matter, delivering healthcare and other benefits globally is fascinating and challenging. The United States is probably the only country where employers are the principal providers or purchasers of healthcare on behalf of their employees. In most other countries, employees top up their national healthcare benefits with employer-sponsored plans. There’s obviously a lot of unevenness to navigate. We don’t strive to be equal across the board, we strive to be equitable across the board.
What benefits have you seen in your workforce in terms of recruitment, retention, wellbeing, productivity?
We are a year in, so, perhaps a little bit early for a formal evaluation, but we are quite rigorous about how we collect data to evaluate our programs and our offerings. On utilization, what we’re seeing is all parents are taking more time off for leave. One obvious question that could come up whenever an employer changes a policy or expands a leave is: are our employees actually taking advantage of it? I’m proud that our employees are. Birth parents are taking off, on average, five more weeks (+30%, from 16 to 21 weeks); non-birth parents are taking off four more weeks (+70%, from 6 weeks to 10 weeks). Additionally, non-birth parents are now deciding to take leave, whereas in the past so-called non primary parents (traditionally, the dads) might not be taking leave. Now, adjusting for headcount changes, we’re seeing about 15% more non-birth parents opting to take leave, which is great. Another component of the leave that we introduced was flexible leave, so you can take leave in up to three chunks over the year and can even start your leave before childbirth as well. My husband and I had our third kid in January, so I took off five weeks initially and I’ll take off two other chunks. That is what worked best for my family and my work. Of the non-birth parents who are taking parental leave, about 20% of them are opting to take advantage of our “flexible” leave policy, which allows parents to split their leave in up to three separate intervals.
What advice would you give an executive who wants to lead on this issue in their own company? What should they do first? What’s something to avoid doing?
We have quite a rigorous approach, and I’m very proud of how we developed our strategy around benefits design. I mentioned the dedicated benefits survey that we did back in 2021 – that was a global survey and which 35% of our entire workforce participated in – and it was quite extensive. In addition to that, we have our annual engagement survey where we ask about whether employees feel they have the resources they need to support their health and well-being. We also hold managers accountable. In their upward feedback of their managers, employees are asked whether their manager supports their health and well-being.
We also have a Global Wellbeing Board that we developed in the last two years, comprised of 16 senior leaders across the firm, like CEOs of business divisions. The responsibility of this board is senior accountability and ownership over our health and well-being strategy. I felt that this was important, because although HR/HR benefits traditionally has the role of developing and rolling out new programs and resources, health and well-being is a business imperative. It therefore requires involvement and buy-in from across the business. That’s been an excellent additional source, not just of leadership and visibility, but actually providing input into our strategy.
Complementing that top-down structure, we have a bottom up-structure: our Global Wellbeing Influencer Network that we also launched in the last year. This is essentially a grassroots network of employees, who have already demonstrated commitment and interest in supporting well-being issues. We’re giving them resources: awareness, programming resources, access to our programs, and a community to network through, so that they can be evangelists for our benefits and provide feedback both to HR and to the Global Wellbeing Board on our benefits. We have a lot of distinct modalities for collective sentiment around benefits.
We also look at hard data utilization, claims data, external benchmarking data, and market research. That all funnels into developing our multi-year strategy. This is a long-winded way of saying that we’re quite rigorous about using data to support the business case that we develop for any change in our benefits. And then ultimately, our job is to manage population health for our 83,000 employees in 40 countries. As a Chief Medical Officer, in addition to being a Global Head of Benefits, when I speak to management about the work that we’re doing, I’m speaking with this lens as a population health leader, not just as a benefits professional. I think that helps advance our case as well.
Given your role, how do you make the connection between increased paid leave and health?
I’m a physician, a pediatric neurologist by training. I have a background in biomedical data science, and biomedical informatics, so I’m serious when I say we were quite rigorous across all of our programs. There’s essentially four types of metrics that I care about: they are utilization, costs or affordability (both for employees and for the firm), employee experience, and then ultimately, health-specific outcomes.
Over time, we can actually do observational studies, where we look at different employee groups, those who have utilized a particular benefit, and those who have not. Then we look at outcomes of interest over time, whether that’s retention, productivity measures, or other performance measures that we have. Sometimes we rely on external measures for this as well. We know supporting mental health is the right thing to do, and so I’ve strongly made the case that we’re not always going to be able to demonstrate with hard metrics and ROI behind what we do. There are certain times where we have to say, “look, we already know this is the right thing to do. The evidence is out there. It’s been proven externally. Let’s not spend time arguing over whether it’s the right thing to do. Let’s agree and deploy internally, and then follow up over time.”
JUST Capital, in collaboration with partners, established the Corporate Care Network to advance the well-being of workers and demonstrate the long-term value of investment in workers. The Network is committed to driving increased access to care benefits, including paid leave and flexible work policies, and highlighting leaders in the space.
If you’re interested in gaining insights into how to improve on the issues that matter most to the American public, and learning how your company can get involved in the Network, please reach out to JUST Capital impact@justcapital.com.
This report was written by Jordyn Avila, Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager, Corporate Impact, and Matthew Nestler, Director of Research Insights, Corporate Impact.
In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the severity of America’s ongoing childcare and caregiving crises – with a recent analysis showing that 22% of American workers are also caregivers. Reports suggest that the childcare industry continues to deteriorate, exacerbating the obstacles that working parents already face in achieving work-life balance, including the lack of federally mandated parental leave.
In a recent Just Capital survey, we found that 64% of Americans believe that in order to promote gender equity in the workplace, it is necessary for companies to provide at least 12 weeks of paid parental leave to all workers.
Despite strong support from the public, there is no guaranteed paid leave for the American workforce. The United States is one of just seven countries in the world without paid maternity leave and one of 83 without paid paternity leave. In the U.S. today, only the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year, compared to an average of 29 and 16 weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave, respectively, among countries with mandated parental leave. Furthermore, just 56% of American workers have been found to be eligible for FMLA leave, with numbers even lower for people of color and low-wage earners. As of January 2023, 13 states and Washington DC offer paid parental leave (with five policies not yet in effect), though not all offer the 12 weeks Americans agree are necessary.
Due to this lack of governmental support, it’s largely up to companies to take the lead on paid parental leave. And with just 23% of civilian workers estimated to receive paid family leave – and only 12% of low-wage earners in the private sector – the need for action is urgent. Furthermore, paid parental leave is not only beneficial for working families. Because it provides opportunities for increased labor force participation and potential GDP increases, as well as improved employee performance, paid parental leave can strengthen companies and the economy overall.
In an effort to better understand how corporate America is currently delivering on this issue, we analyzed whether America’s largest companies – the Russell 1000 – disclose paid parental leave policies, and if so, what that disclosure looks like. This analysis is part of our new Corporate Care Network – which will explore how companies are supporting working families and spotlight best practices from corporate leaders taking the lead on issues from subsidized child care to paid parental leave. Dig into the full findings below.
In analyzing the Russell 1000 companies we rank, we found that 60%, or 568 companies, disclosed a paid parental leave policy as of September 2022 – a 13 percentage point increase over the year prior when 47%, or 444 companies, disclosed.
While this increase is heartening, when we look closer at the data we find that far fewer companies disclose the specific number of weeks offered to primary and secondary caregivers, with 43%, or 408 companies, providing the number for primary caregivers and 41%, or 388 companies, disclosing the same for secondary caregivers. We did find that, like the overall disclosure percentages, these numbers also increased over the past year, with 47 more companies disclosing the number of weeks for primary caregivers (38% to 43%) and 36 more disclosing for secondary caregivers (37% to 41%).
The benefits of paid parental leave are significant for both primary and secondary caregivers. Study after study shows that access to paid leave leads to better health outcomes for both mothers and children. It’s also been found that when men take paid leave, we see lower divorce rates, closer relationships between fathers and children, and lower rates of postpartum depression and other maternal health issues. With growing support for equitable weeks of paid parental leave, disclosure of specific weeks for both primary and secondary caregivers is a critical first step for corporate leaders looking to drive change on this issue overall.
While disclosure itself is key to understanding the current landscape of paid parental leave, it is increasingly considered a corporate best practice to offer parity in paid leave for both primary and secondary caregivers. Leading to better outcomes for workers and their families, parity in paid leave is a more inclusive practice, acknowledging all family types and the roles that parents play in childcare, regardless of their gender identity, relationship status, or sexual orientation.
To assess how companies perform, we look at how many provide parity in leave at or more than 12 weeks. As of September 2022, 9%, or 87 companies, provide equal weeks of paid leave to primary and secondary caregivers, compared to 6%, or 59 companies, a year earlier – an increase of 3 percentage points and 25 companies.
Among the 36 industries we analyze, none demonstrated full disclosure, in which all companies disclosed the specific number of weeks of paid leave for both primary and secondary caregivers. Just nine of these 36 industries had a disclosure rate above 50%, though there were some standouts. Of the 25 companies in the Oil & Gas industry, 72% disclosed the weeks of paid parental leave offered to both primary and secondary caregivers, closely followed by the Internet industry with 67% of companies disclosing, Transaction Processing (65%), and Banks (63%).
16 industries have a disclosure rate between 30% and 50%, representing 196 companies that disclose the number of weeks of paid leave for both primary and secondary caregivers. However, nine industries fell below the 30% disclosure rate.
Based on these findings, there is a clear opportunity for Russell 1000 companies – particularly in certain industries – to not only disclose that they offer paid parental leave, but the number of weeks they provide.
In looking at the policies of companies that disclose the number of weeks of paid leave, we found that primary caregivers receive between one and 26 weeks, with a mean of 10.5 weeks, and a median of 10 weeks. Secondary caregivers also receive a range of one to 26 weeks, but the mean and median are 7.6 weeks and six weeks, respectively. As a way to further assess performance, we quantify the average number of weeks of paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers by industry. The highest performing industry is Internet, offering 18 weeks on average for primary caregivers and 17 on average for secondary caregivers. Software is also leading by offering an average of 16 and 12 weeks to primary and secondary caregivers, respectively.
Although our Just Jobs Scorecard awards the highest score (4/4) to companies offering 24 weeks or more of paid parental leave, this analysis reveals that 10 industries offer an average of 12 or more weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, while only two offer the same for secondary caregivers. 26 industries offer, on average, fewer than 12 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers and 34 offer the same, on average, for secondary caregivers. For primary caregivers, 15 industries offer between 10 and 12 weeks on average, and for secondary caregivers, 17 industries offer between 4 and 6 weeks.
Only Health Care Providers offered an equal average amount of leave for primary and secondary caregivers. All other industries provided more weeks of paid parental leave to primary caregivers.
While our latest analysis signals that corporate America is steadily improving its efforts around paid parental leave, millions of workers around the U.S. do not have access to paid parental leave to welcome home their newest family member, to recover from a birth event, and to adjust to life with a new child. Women, people of color, and individuals who identify as LGBTQ are least likely to have access to paid leave, exacerbating racial and gender inequities in workplaces. Without a federal mandate or policy, workers of all types rely on the private sector to ensure that they have access to adequate paid parental leave, a key benefit for companies to improve retention, attract talent, and strengthen employee health and wellness and engagement.
