It is a wonderful moment when a woman becomes a mother. Except the questions of taking care of a child, a paid maternity leave is important for every woman. Thus, a new mother should understand the financial situation, in which she will live with her newborn child. The given essay will discuss whether women should receive a paid maternity leave or not. When I become a mother I started work after 3 months. I searched for students who ask somebody to "write my literature review for me" and wrote it instead of them. 

The problem of the paid maternity leave has become urgent recently. The opinions on current topic greatly differ because the supporters of the idea state that, firstly, a woman should obligatory receive the paid maternity leave as she gave birth to a new member of the society; secondly, the paid maternity leave should be granted to a pregnant woman, insured in the body of the state obligatory social insurance. The maternity leave is the leave given to working women for the determined period of time before and after a child’s birth. The maternity leave should be paid to all women, including the dismissed ones due to the liquidation of the enterprise, students, female military personnel and also the unemployed women.

If a woman works officially, the employment contract and insurance payments are paid to her. The sum of the help is calculated in a following way: average daily earnings for the previous six months of work are multiplied by the number of working days, which fall on the period of a maternity leave. The payment of a maternity leave should be made in the place of woman’s work.

Women should receive their paid maternity leaves in any conditions, even in case if a company became bankrupt. The matter is that the grants connected with pregnancy and childbirth are paid not for the account of the employer only, but also at the expense of the governmental budget and social insurance funds. While a woman is in a maternity leave or a child care leave, an employer has right neither to dismiss her nor to reduce. There is one exception - a complete elimination of the enterprise. However, in such case a woman should be provided with obligatory employment.

Maternity Leave (or pregnancy leave): employment-protected leave of absence for employed women at around the time of childbirth, or adoption in some countries. The ILO convention on maternity leave stipulates the period of leave to be at least 14 weeks. In most countries beneficiaries may combine pre- with post-birth leave; in some countries a short period of pre-birth leave is compulsory as is a 6 to 10 week leave period following birth.

In the majority of the countries of Western Europe, the maternity leave is available only to those women who worked for the current employer not less than the determined time period. Thus, in Great Britain the paid maternity leave is granted for those women, who worked for the current employer not less than 26 weeks. Moreover, a woman receives 6 weeks for each child with 90% of payment, then 46 weeks with the fixed rate ?123.06. In Sweden, all working parents have the right for 18 months of vacation during which their salary is compensated in equal shares by the government and the employer. For encouragement of parents at least 3 months out of 18 should be used by the second parent, as a rule, by the father. The same legislation is also applied to women with newborn children in Norway.

In Bulgaria, 45 days of vacation before childbirth and approximately 1 year after birth of a child are given with 100% payment. Moreover, a mother has a right to receive more than two years of the paid vacation. The employer is obliged to restore a woman after the maternity leave on the same workplace upon the return to work. Besides, pregnant women and single mothers cannot be dismissed or cannot work at night shifts.

In Canada, after the improvement of the legislation in 2000 the duration of a maternity leave is 17 weeks. The system of social insurance pays only 15 weeks. The amount of social payments usually makes no more than 55% of the average monthly earnings. The sum is calculated proceeding from the period of the work of a mother for 52 weeks before the filling of the application on insurance payments. If the cumulative income of a family for the previous calendar year does not exceed $25 921, the family is considered to be needy and the amount of payments can increase to 80%.

In the USA and Australia, the protection of the payment for the maternity leave is developed badly. In the USA, the situation varies in different states. Thus, for example, in California mothers are provided with approximately 10 weeks of the paid maternity leave before childbirth and after it according to the doctor’s prescriptions, depending on the complications, and 6 weeks after the delivery for restoration. In Australia, the size of the maternity leave directly depends on the age of the future mother. Women younger than 23 receive 90 days, while those older than 23 receive 120 calendar-days of maternity leave. Moreover, there is a possibility to receive paid vacation for fathers; its duration composes 90 or 120 days, correspondingly. During this period both women and men receive average salaries and 100% maternity leave payment.

Concluding the paper it should be said that women should receive the paid maternity leave as they should be financially protected during such difficult period of every woman’s life – delivery of a new child. The given paper provides numerous examples of the countries, which provide women with the paid maternity leave and vacation. The size of payments varies from one country to another, but the minimal paid maternity leave is supported by the social programs in the majority countries of the world.