Template:Did you know nominations/Maternity leave (United States)

Maternity leave in the United States

 * ... that approximately 40% of the American workforce is currently ineligible for federally protected maternity leave?

Created/expanded by Mwtwgt (talk). Self nominated at 01:23, 26 March 2013 (UTC).


 * Symbol possible vote.svg Length and date verified; no signs of copyright violation. It's a decent start for an article, but there are a few issues. The simplest is that the hook needs to specify that the 40% figure applies to women—men surely make up at least 40% of the workforce, and nobody would be surprised that they're ineligible for maternity leave. Aside from that little slip-up, there are problems with referencing. Several paragraphs end without inline citations, leaving potentially contentious sentences like "Maternity leave though negates many of these adverse effects by facilitating a longer leave of absence for new mothers" without a citation. The article ends up looking like it has something of a pro-maternity-leave slant. The slant is mild enough, I think, that it might pass muster if the potentially contentious statements were supported by sources, but at the moment they don't seem to be. Maybe this appearance is just a product of the way you've arranged the citations—I can't read most of your sources, so I don't know. But I think you need to go over the article again, keeping the rules about original research and neutral point of view in mind, and making sure potentially contentious statements are supported by sources.


 * (I also think the title "maternity leave in the United States" would feel more organic and fit better with Wikipdia's naming conventions, but that isn't a DYK issue.) A. Parrot (talk) 02:20, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: article has been renamed to A. Parrot's suggestion by someone; adjusting template contents accordingly (template itself does not get renamed!). BlueMoonset (talk) 16:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: I have responded to the above criticisms. Thank your for time and consideration. Mwtwgt


 * There's progress, yes, but several sentences are still missing citations (in the sections "Child health and development", "Economic efficiency", "Access equality", and "Foreign comparison").


 * And I looked in to the issue with the hook. I found that the source for the 40% figure refers to the parental leave benefits provided by the FMLA, not to maternity leave specifically. The article text based on that citation doesn't specify maternity leave, so it's accurate, but the Did You Know hook suggested here is misleading, because the 40% figure applies to both men and women. You could suggest a new hook based on some other factoid in the article, or you could move the article (again—sorry about that) to "parental leave in the United States". A. Parrot (talk) 21:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * How about this one? ALT 1: *... that maternity leave costs every American company $220 dollars annually for each woman involved in this program?
 * Cheers!  —♦♦ AMBER  (ЯʘCK)  21:12, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I have to confess I'm not thrilled by a hook that is based on 20-year-old data: that number has to be significantly different in 2013 than it was in 1993. For that matter, $220 just isn't an exciting number: that's pretty inexpensive, when you come to think of it. I'd really like to see Mwtwgt make a new suggestion here. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:29, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg Yeah, I concur with BlueMoonset that 20 year old data might not make for the best hook out there. However, the nominator doesn't seem to respond. He was reminded a week ago of the need to keep this nomination alive, but this has fallen into an inactive state again. Please do respond within the next couple of days.  —♦♦ AMBER  (ЯʘCK)  08:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)