U.S. ranks worst out of 40 countries for paid maternity leave

While paid maternity leave is becoming a more prominent employee benefit in the U.S., there is an unsettling gap when it is compared to the maternity leave policies in other countries. 

For every country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization that works to stimulate global economic progress, maternity leave is a national guarantee, regardless of one's employer. Yet there is an exception: the U.S. In fact, the U.S. is one of only six countries in the entire world without a national paid parental leave policy. 

Alongside the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which ended the national right to abortion care, and the rising cost of childcare, it seems especially frustrating that the U.S. is nearly alone in its lack of maternity leave, making it harder for moms to build stable futures for their families on their own terms. CommonCentsMom.com, a financial wellness resource for families, examined 40 other countries in the OECD and EU to see just how far behind the U.S. is. 

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"The fact that the U.S. lacks a maternity system never really sat right with us, and we wanted to check which other developed countries have the same approach," says Katie Ren, founder of CommonCentsMom.com. "Now we know for a fact that this is not normal. Every mother has different needs, but they should not be forced to go back to work at the cost of their own health and well-being, or that of their child."

Using data from national statistics offices, the OECD, the World Bank and Eurostat from 2020 and 2021, CommonCentsMom.com ranked countries according to how many paid weeks of leave mothers can take. The Slovak Republic took the number one spot with 164 weeks. 

Ren notes that national funding does not seem to be what's stopping the U.S., since countries with lower economic activity still have generous leave policies in place. She also does not believe leaving maternity policies in the hands of individual employers is a solution. However, it does not seem the U.S. is close to establishing a federal leave policy anytime soon.

Here are 10 countries with the best and worst paid maternity leave, according to CommonCentsMom.com.