1. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Employment Characteristics of Families Summary," news release, June 9, 2005, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm.

2. Jodi Grant et al., Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Parental Leave Programs (Washington, D.C.: National Partnership for Women and Families, 2005), http://www.nationalpartnership.org/portals/p3/library/PaidLeave/Parental-LeaveReportMay05.pdf, 48–49.

3. Jody Heymann et al., The Work, Family, and Equity Index: Where Does the United States Stand Globally? (Boston: Project on Global Working Families, 2004), http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/globalworkingfamilies/images/report.pdf.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, “Employment Insurance (EI) and Maternity, Parental and Sickness Benefits,” http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/asp/gateway.asp?hr=en/ei/types/special.shtml&hs=tyt#Maternity3.

7. In Sweden, according to the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO), “Parental leave runs for 480 days, of which 390 days are paid at the same rate as for sick pay—i.e. 80 percent of normal pay (up to a ceiling). Parents each have a legal right to take 50 percent of the leave, but one parent can transfer some of their entitlement to the other. However, 60 days of the leave may not be transferred. This part of the leave is called the ‘mother months’ and ‘father months’ respectively.” Annika Berg, “Commission to Examine Parental Leave,” European Industrial Relations Observatory Online, http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2004/06/inbrief/se0406102n.html.

8. Ann Crittenden, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued (Henry Holt and Company, 2002), 248.

9. Grant et al., Expecting Better, 7.

10. Ibid., 6.

11. Christopher J. Ruhm, “Parental Leave and Child Health” (working paper, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, May 1998), http://www.nber.org/papers/w6554.

12. Kristin Smith et al., Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns: 1961–1995, Current Population Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, D.C., 2001, http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p70-79.pdf.

13. Barbara Downs, Fertility of American Women: June 2002, Current Population Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, D.C., 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20-548.pdf.

14. Ruhm, "Parental Leave and Child Health."

15. Heymann et al., The Work, Family, and Equity Index, 7-8.

16. World Health Organization, The World Health Report 2005: Make Every Mother and Child Count, 182-185, http://www.who.int/whr/2005/annex/annexe2a_en.pdf.

17. Emily Fenichel et al., Partnerships for Quality: Improving Infant-Toddler childcare for Low-Income Families (Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., 2002), http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/pdfs/partnership.pdf.

18. Susanna Loeb et al., “Childcare in Poor Communities: Early Learning Effects of Type, Quality, and Stability,” Child Development 75, no. 1 (2004), http://pace.berkeley.edu/Stanford_Child_Dev_Findings.pdf.

19. Grant et al., Expecting Better, 8.

20. Grant et al., Expecting Better, 9.

21. Jane Waldfogel, “Family and Medical Leave: Evidence from the 2000 Surveys,” Monthly Labor Review 124, no. 9 (September 2001), 17–23.

22. Sakiko Tanaka, “Parental Leave and Child Health Across OECD Countries,” Economic Journal 115, no. 501 (2005), 7–28.

23. Grant et al., Expecting Better.

24. Ibid., 7.

25. Heymann et al., The Work, Family, and Equity Index, 8.

26. Smith et al., Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns. Also see Katherin Ross Phillips, Getting Time Off: Access to Leave Among Working Parents (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2004), http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310977_B-57.pdf.

27. Grant et al., Expecting Better, 8.