Maternity Leave

In the United States, “The Family Medical Leave Act” (FMLA) allows a person to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave with job protection for family-related medical reasons.  These reasons can include the birth and care of the employee’s child, adoption of a child, or care for health of a family member.  This act, however, does not apply to those who have been at their job for less than a year before taking their leave, to those working in a small company (less than 50 employees), and to those who are not considered to be “official employees” (e.g., graduate students at a private university in MA). FMLA also does not provide any guarantee for paid leave, although many employers may choose to provide paid leave as part of employee’s benefits package. 

Most other industrialized countries have a different view of maternity leave than the United States.  Check out these pictures to learn more:

Length of maternity leave around the world.

Percent of wages paid to employees on maternity leave around the world.

In case you are not familiar with lives of Ph.D. students in science, we typically receive a monthly stipend for research/teaching assistantship and health insurance.  The exact source of income varies, but typically comes from federal grants, private grants or fellowships, the department, or some combination of the above.

Harvard University has NO maternity leave policy for graduate students.  At Harvard, graduate students are not considered to be university employees.

In my department, each student basically negotiates the arrangements for her maternity leave individually with her advisor.  How much leverage does a student have in that negation?  Whichever way you spin it, I think it’s hard to make a convincing case against the fact that your advisor has no obligation to pay you your stipend or make accommodations for you to maintain your active student status while you are consumed by taking care of yourself and the baby immediately after giving birth.  This lack of policy essentially leaves the student at complete mercy of the Ph.D. supervisor.  

It is understandable that the university and the department would want to avoid implementing an official maternity leave policy for graduate students.  Who wants to be financially liable for something that they are not mandated to be liable for by any law?  From a student’s perspective, this is not helpful at all. 

I think the situation is exacerbated by the fact that, if your advisor does indeed choose to pay you while you are on leave, the source of income for graduate students on maternity leave is not supposed to come from federal grants (because certification of effort is requires).  In this case, the income is supposed to come from a non-sponsored fund (What’s that? Who has that kind of money?).

Pregnant graduate students are a fairly rare occurrence in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard, but I’m told that in recent cases graduate students who had babies and took some time off for maternity leave continued to receive a stipend and remain in active status while on this “unofficial” leave.  I’m curious if their stipend actually came from those non-sponsored funds.

The situation is completely different for postdocs.  Postdocs are considered to be university employees, and their maternity leave policies are clearly outlined, and mandated by state and federal laws.  Postdocs get 13 weeks of paid maternity leave.  This is paid for by 8 weeks short term disability, 4 weeks parental leave, and 1 week from vacation time (if any). Otherwise, the 13th week is unpaid.  Why can’t it be the same for graduate students?

When I learned about all of this, a part of me wanted to fight the system, speak up, and do something about changing the policy for graduate students.  Another part of me just wanted to defend my thesis and get out.

My major comfort in all of this is that I have a supportive husband with a source of income.  My original plan (fully supported by my advisor) was to defend my thesis before the baby comes.  That way I would exit “the system” before the spring semester starts, my ties with Harvard would be severed, and I would take some time off, free from work-related responsibilities, to be with the baby until I start my next job (September 2011).  That plan is no longer feasible.  My thesis is still not finished, and I’ll need to come up with a new plan at some point…