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The Republican Party concluded its convention last night at the Xcel Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, some political analysts are pondering if news of her pregnant teenage daughter has caused a shift in their approach to family values. Aside from an accepting stance toward teen pregnancy, a new report shows the U.S. woefully behind economically competitive nations in parental leave for all new mothers and fathers. Assessing the shortcomings of such policies in the United States is a new report released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The study Parental Leave Policies in 21 Countries: Assessing Generosity and Equality” compares the U.S. against twenty other high-income nations and finds that it places at the bottom in important categories. The report establishes that the U.S. is second to last in terms of total leave and dead last in terms of the generosity of paid leave.

GUEST: Rebecca Ray, lead author of the report “Parental Leave Policies in 21 Countries: Assessing Generosity and Gender Equality,” and research assistant at the Center for Economic and Policy Research

To read the report, visit www.cepr.net