California (CA) Maternity Leave Law

I happened to be digging around a bit on the California Labor Department web site, and found out some interesting information regarding their maternity leave law. At any rate, I thought this would be a good place to share it.

Did you know that under the California Family and Parental Leave Act, you get six weeks of paid leave to care for an infant, adopted child, or foster child?

Also, as an extension of California’s State Disability Insurance program, you get time off to care for a spouse or partner who is disabled, sick, or injured due to pregnancy or childbirth. SDI is funded through employee payroll deductions, and covers all private sector California employees who pay into the fund. I found out that currently, about 13 million of California’s 16 million workers pay into the fund. It covers disability four weeks prior to or six weeks after pregnancy. But it doesn’t provide workers with any additional protection when taking medical leave, for example protection against termination.

By the way, in case you were wondering you can’t receive the benefits of short-term disability and family leave at the same time. But you can receive short-term disability and then get family leave benefits after recovery from childbirth.

California has a flexible sick leave law. This law allows all workers covered by this law the option of using it to care for a spouse or partner who is sick or disabled because of pregnancy. But I do want to clarify that this law does not require employers to let workers use their sick leave to care for a healthy newborn.

California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act stipulates that all employers with five or more employees allow up to four months of unpaid job-protected leave for pregnancy-related disability, no matter how long the woman has worked at the company or how many hours she has worked. Once this leave is over, the woman can request up to 12 weeks of leave to care for or bond with her baby.

State employees who pay into the SDI are eligible for the same family and medical leave benefits as those in the private sector. In addition, those disabled as a result of pregnancy get 26 weeks of benefits. . State employees may also be entitled to up to one year of unpaid maternity leave, paternity leave, or adoption leave.

Hope all this information sheds a little light on the laws related to maternity in California!