I'm ripping this headline off of someone--but it's an apropos lead in to this news: The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't guarantee paid vacation days and paid holidays for workers, according to a Center for Economic and Policy Research study.

In France, workers are guaranteed 30 days paid leave; employees in most other European nations get at least 20. In the U.S., there are no guarantees, and the study estimates that leaves 28 million Americans with no paid vacation or holidays.

Coupled that with the fact that the U.S. has one of the worst maternity leave policies of any industrialized nation, along with the equally appalling fact that more than half of U.S. workers do not receive any paid sick days (NYT subscribers: read Bob Herbert's column), and you will understand why so many American women want to leave their jobs after having children.




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