Dive Brief:
- Thanks to the efforts of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump might make paid parental leave a workplace policy, reports Quartz. Ivanka Trump reportedly is a proponent of family issues like childcare and maternity leave.
- The president discussed women in the workplace with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau during their first-ever meeting on Tuesday.
- Quartz said that at the insistence of Ivanka Trump , the president included a maternity leave plan on his presidential campaign platform — becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to do so — and had a discussion on working women during his business advisory council’s inaugural meeting on Feb. 3.
Dive Insight:
President Trump and Trudeau also met with women CEOs to announce the creation of a joint Canada-U.S. council to advance women into executive roles and provide women entrepreneurs with access to capital.
According to Bloomberg, Trump told the women CEOs: “Women provide 40% of household incomes. We must ensure our economy is a place where women can work and thrive.” Offering women employees paid parental leave is certainly one way to help them thrive in the workplace.
Trump’s possible support of paid parental leave would be a split from his party; though one GOP-backed think tank previously laid out a parental leave plan for conservatives, Republicans largely view paid leave as bad for businesses instead of a strategy for attracting and retaining talent.
As more companies add or expand their paid leave benefits, the U.S. still lags seriously behind other industrial nations.
