Four in five women said that paid family and medical leave was important to their vote in the Presidential election this year, a national poll conducted by YouGov exclusively for Glamour reveals.
When broken down by party lines, 89 percent of Democrat leaning women voters, and 68 percent of Republican leaning women voters said it was important when voting this election.
So far, Democrat President Joe Biden has promised to pass paid family and medical leave if reelected in November. But the Republican party has yet to commit to passing any kind of paid leave legislation—although three republicans sit on a recently formed bipartisan working group for paid leave.
America remains the only industrialized country in the world to offer no form of paid family and medical leave. The effects are clear: according to a Department of Labor survey, one in four women have gone back to work within two weeks of giving birth.
Glamour’s YouGov poll also reveals further damning statistics. According to the representative survey of nearly 2,000 women, nearly half of all women—48 percent—have gone back to work within six weeks of having a baby.
That rises to 56 percent of women returning to work within six weeks of having a baby, in families whose income is under $50,000 a year.
