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Now, I'm very much in favour of parental leave, especially something that allows paternal leave as wells as maternal leave. I think it has huge societal upside

Now, I'm very much in favour of parental leave, especially something that allows paternal leave as wells as maternal leave. I think it has huge societal upside. Having said that, it is naive to think this isn't a fairly large burden on a company -- especially for a software company. First, assume that the company is paying the benefit -- say 50% of salary. That's an expense. Then you have to hire a contractor for a year. The rule of thumb is that a contractor costs double. So you have the same overhead cost (same number of desks), but you are paying 250% of the salary (plus applicable taxes). Then consider the domain knowledge that the worker on leave has. How long will it take for the contractor to get up to speed? So you have a loss of productivity. And the hiring process itself isn't cheap. In the end with all of the costs, you will probably be paying up to 3 times the original salary for the person on leave. I leave this for the end because I know it is a potential sore point with many people given typical gender based roles. Without wanting to get into that discussion, there is always the chance that the person who goes on parental leave (whoever it might be) will decide not to return to their former career. A year of child care is a long time and many people (for many good reasons, IMHO) decide that this should be their new career. So a company, having paid nearly 3 times the employees salary in costs and lost productivity, may end up simply losing that employee anyway. It is hard for the company to deal with -- especially small companies that don't have a lot of excess money/time to afford the expense. Again, I'm not saying it shouldn't be the norm, but closing your eyes to the very real hardships of the company in this case will not help it expand.

ux-app 11y ago
> "It is hard for the company to deal with" Shouldn't this be considered the cost of doing business? Here in Australia we have mandatory employer retirement contributions of 9.5%. I'm sure small business would love not having to pay this, but that is the cost of employment.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  That's a hard concept to swallow in America. Bootstraps and all that jazz.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  A burden is a burden, whether expected or not. The OP was opining that there was no burden because you can just hire a contractor for a year. Also, unlike pension contributions (here Japan we have to pay 7% pension and 7% health insurance!), parental leave costs are not applicable to all employees; just ones that are going to have babies. So if you have 10 employees and one of them goes on parental leave, suddenly your costs have gone up 20%. As much as this is "the cost of doing business", it's pretty hard to plan for that when you don't know the procreational schedule of your employees. Do you keep a float of capital "just in case"? Heaven help you if 2 people go on parental leave at the same time! How many start ups are going to budget for babies rather than spend that money trying to expand growth? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is far from easy. Even worse, in countries where there is no paternal leave, this means it is a cost/risk that applies only to young women employees. I hope it goes without saying that this creates a terribly uneven playing field for women in industry. Like I said, I'm a staunch advocate of parental leave, but I don't think it is an easy situation for anyone.
  - ux-app 11y ago
    You're absolutely correct that this is not a simple situation to solve. Unfortunately the US goes into collective anaphylactic shock when words like socialized <insert anything here> is mentioned. Ideally the state pays for this through taxation or via levy against large corporations. This way everyone has access, even those not fortunate enough to work at Microsoft.

ux-app 11y ago

> "It is hard for the company to deal with" Shouldn't this be considered the cost of doing business? Here in Australia we have mandatory employer retirement contributions of 9.5%. I'm sure small business would love not having to pay this, but that is the cost of employment.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
That's a hard concept to swallow in America. Bootstraps and all that jazz.
mikekchar 11y ago
A burden is a burden, whether expected or not. The OP was opining that there was no burden because you can just hire a contractor for a year. Also, unlike pension contributions (here Japan we have to pay 7% pension and 7% health insurance!), parental leave costs are not applicable to all employees; just ones that are going to have babies. So if you have 10 employees and one of them goes on parental leave, suddenly your costs have gone up 20%. As much as this is "the cost of doing business", it's pretty hard to plan for that when you don't know the procreational schedule of your employees. Do you keep a float of capital "just in case"? Heaven help you if 2 people go on parental leave at the same time! How many start ups are going to budget for babies rather than spend that money trying to expand growth? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is far from easy. Even worse, in countries where there is no paternal leave, this means it is a cost/risk that applies only to young women employees. I hope it goes without saying that this creates a terribly uneven playing field for women in industry. Like I said, I'm a staunch advocate of parental leave, but I don't think it is an easy situation for anyone.
- ux-app 11y ago
  You're absolutely correct that this is not a simple situation to solve. Unfortunately the US goes into collective anaphylactic shock when words like socialized <insert anything here> is mentioned. Ideally the state pays for this through taxation or via levy against large corporations. This way everyone has access, even those not fortunate enough to work at Microsoft.