The more I look at it , the more it looks like the sky is moving <| sep |> Well it ' s true . Companies are suppose to be selfish . It ' s a buisness . If they were to pay someone to go on maternity leave they ' d have to A pay them for 0 marginal value and B train a new person to take over their position while that person is gone which they will end up firing once the person on maternity leave comes back . It ' s a Huge waste of money and resources that businesses don ' t want to go through . Personally rather than paid maternity leave i think I ' d be more efficient if the person on maternity leave was to come in 24 days a week and during those days heshe works the company could subsidize paying for a nanny or babysitter . Yeah the workers marginal value would decrease but not to 0 . They would also forgo training a new employee reducing costs further and their only costs would end up being the subsidy and the decrease in marginal value from the worker working less .