Advocates hope move by state to expand parental leave will inspire private sector

Women employed by the state of Indiana will qualify for longer paid parental leave under Gov. Mike Braun, spurring hopes that private employers might also consider expanding such benefits.

Under Braun’s new policy signed March 3, all women employed by the state, including both full- and part-time workers, are eligible for up to six weeks of paid childbirth recovery leave. For women who deliver via cesarean section, up to eight weeks of paid leave will be offered.

Previous benefits enacted in 2018 provided up to four weeks of paid leave for full-time employees and up to two weeks for part-time employees.

“I believe employers should do everything they can to accommodate the needs of new parents, and today I’m setting an example by strengthening our state’s policies for paid parental leave (including adoption), childbirth recovery leave, and paid leave for those facing the tragedy of losing a baby,” Braun said.

“These new paid parental leave policies will benefit women recovering from childbirth, their spouses, and the newborns whose health and development will be improved by more time with their parents in those first critical weeks.”

When it comes to private employers, Braun said he didn’t want mandates for paid maternal leave that would dictate how businesses spent their resources. But supporters of such benefits say the governor is setting a good example for private businesses to follow.

In enacting the new standards for state government, Braun also dropped the previous requirement that an employee must be working for the state for at least six months before being eligible for paid leave.

Instead, those who’ve worked for the state for less than six months must agree to complete at least one year of consecutive employment with the state once they return from parental leave.

Braun’s paid leave standards also apply to the partners of women who gave birth, as well as parents who have an adopted child. Parents who fall under this category and work for the state full-time receive up to 150 hours of paid leave.

The order also grants paid leave for employees who lost their child in utero at 20 weeks’ gestation or beyond.

National outlook

Currently, 13 other states have laws requiring certain businesses to provide paid family and medical leave. The amount of leave time provided varies in length but usually doesn’t surpass 12 weeks.

In Indiana, there is no such law. Instead, private employees fall under the purview of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the federal legislation that offers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees working for a private employer with 50 or more employees.

But in Delaware, for example, certain private employers will soon be required to provide up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave after at least one year of employment. In California, parents receive eight weeks of paid leave.

Other federal regulations offer some support for pregnant and postpartum women while they’re on the clock. In April 2024, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published its final rule for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Enacted in June 2023, the act requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” to employees with limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless those accommodations would cause the employer “undue hardship.”

The commission’s final rule offers employers’ guideposts for how to carry out the act. Such provisions by the EEOC include which employees are covered under the act, examples of reasonable accommodations employers can provide, and what rights employees have in requesting these accommodations.

Within the past year, employers have made strides to understand how the act should be implemented in the workplace. Deborah Widiss, a law professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, believes employers recognize the importance of the law and want to understand how to work with it. And unless there are complaints filed, the law’s success isn’t easy to track.

“When it works well, a pregnant worker goes to her supervisor and says, ‘I need time off so I can go to the doctor’, or ‘I need to be able to take extra bathroom breaks.’ And her supervisor says fine and the law has done what it should do,” Widiss said.

The Trump administration’s take on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is not yet known. Several employees at the EEOC lost their jobs because of the executive order calling for cutbacks in federal spending, including Jocelyn Samuels, commissioner for the EEOC and Trump’s pick for a Democratic seat in 2020.

But Widiss said that right now, the administration is more concerned with transgender issues.

Statewide paid leave

Braun’s expansion of parental leave for state government employees is a step in the right direction for the state of Indiana, said Cassie Beer, director of the Women’s Fund of Greater Fort Wayne. The organization provides resources, education, and advocacy to support women and girls in Allen County.

Beer said the Women’s Fund has discovered that caregiving support is one of the key areas that impacts women’s ability to thrive economically.

“We found that 23% of women working full-time hours in our community don’t have access to any type of paid time-off because so many women are working multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet, or their employers just don’t offer robust benefits, so they don’t have access to any type of paid time-off to have a baby or to just go to the doctor,” Beer said.

According to a study by Oxfam, a global organization fighting inequality to end poverty, Indiana ranked 24 out of 52 (data includes Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico) for its worker protection policies, which includes mandates for paid sick and family leave. Data is based on state laws and policies that were in effect as of July 2024.

Beer is hopeful Braun’s order will invite more conversation about paid leave for private employees, too.

Allen County slightly outpaces the state average in terms of the percentage of women in the workplace. Data collected by the Women’s Fund in 2020 shows that 75% of women in Allen County work outside the home. That number is 74% statewide.

“We need to really examine how our workplaces are designed to make sure that they do support women who shoulder the overwhelming majority of caregiving at every stage,” she said.

In Allen County, Beer said, she’s cautiously optimistic that the positive trends the organization has seen toward paid parental leave will continue despite pushback from the Trump administration over diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

“I hope employers will remain committed to doing the work that really supports not just women, not just people of color, but this work supports everybody,” she said. “It makes workplaces better for everyone.”•