YouTube CEO Calls For Paid Maternity Leave Across America

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki was Google's first employee to take maternity leave. Google was a teeny 15-person team at the time in 1999, but Wojcicki was assured that business would still be there when she got back.

Fifteen years later, Wojcicki is calling for industries across the United States to grant their soon-to-be mothers the same courtesy. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, she outlines the commercial benefit for it, pointing out that when Google increased maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18 weeks (and paternity leave from seven to 12 weeks), the rate at which new mothers left their posts dropped by 50%.

But it's not just Google. In 2011, a survey from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in California concluded that organizations that instituted a policy of paid leave either had a positive or no impact on their profitability.

The reasoning? Wojcicki believes that the mothers are able to enter the workforce when they are ready—not when their employers force them to be.

The problem is that many women in America aren't afforded the privilege of caring for their newborns in that capacity. As she points out, in America only 12% or private workers and 5% or low-income earners have access to those benefits, whereas worldwide, every other developed nation has a government-mandated leave policy.

"I know from experience that being a mother gave me a broader sense of purpose, more compassion and a better ability to prioritize and get things done efficiently," Wojcicki wrote. "It also helped me understand the specific needs and concerns of mothers, who make most household spending decisions and control more than $2 trillion of purchasing power in the U.S."

Should the U.S. implement a new maternity leave policy?

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