4 ms·

I'm not sure I gather the defense you're making for the US's position. You're arguing that since the US populous is so spread out they have a hard time getting

by TheCapn 10y ago

I'm not sure I gather the defense you're making for the US's position. You're arguing that since the US populous is so spread out they have a hard time getting on the same page to advocate for positive change in health policies? What part of population density or land mass size makes for this excuse where there's examples worldwide of both ends of either measure who've implemented paid leave by law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_international_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_in... Countries larger and smaller than the USA have better policy. Countries with greater and lesser population densities. Diversity of people might matter but I fail to see a demographic within the US that is outright against increased parental benefits of new parents that doesn't exist within every country that has overcome the problem.

dangerlibrary 10y ago
The demographic you are failing to take into account is private corporations, who have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, and whose board members believe they have an overriding ethical obligation to protect and increase shareholder value.
- jcbeard 10y ago
  The government, led by the people, has an ethical obligation to extend rights to parents...to include longer maternity and paternity leave for all gendered categories of parents.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    The us government is led by the rich.
avar 10y ago
The parent comment by munificent is just making the lazy go-to excuse for US policies that it's so big / special / whatever that everything has to be different there. Notice how these lazy comparisons never make any specific comparisons to other countries that would trivially refute their claims, such as Russia having 4x less population density than the US, but still somehow managing to have a federally mandated parental leave. If it were true that it's just so hard for people far removed from one another geographically to relate to each other wouldn't it follow that the situation in Russia would be 4x worse than the US?
- Amezarak 10y ago
  Well, I would suspect that the US is much more culturally diverse than Russia. Something like a quarter of all US residents are foreign born or have a foreign born parent; that's reflected in cities like NYC. I am doubtful the numbers are similar for Russia, which is very large and does have some ethnic and cultural diversity, but has been dealing with the same groups for much longer and probably in more of an authoritarian way. Not a defense of America; I do think the difference is more complicated than just the size.
  - Sabinus 10y ago
    Does it follow then that America might have an easier time if they were to encourage more cultural and racial homogeneity?
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    [Insert default arguments of why America is special] 1.) big and sparse. oh wait.. 2.) culturally diverse. oh wait.. [1][2][3][4] I only have one explanation for social service scarcity in the US: It seems to be dominated by a culture where you'd rather have large parts of the population suffer rather than having anyone chip in for the bill of groups of people (s)he doesn't identify with. It's the idea of self responsibility pushed to an unhealthy extreme. At the same time when talking to people in the US personally (almost) everyone seems to be helpful and nice, much more so than in most European countries actually. That dichotomy is something I'm really struggling with, i.e. I fail to find a good explanation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_... [2] http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/11/11/maternity-leave-allowance-china.html http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/11/11/maternity-leav... [3] https://www.angloinfo.com/brazil/how-to/page/brazil-healthcare-pregnancy-birth-maternity-leave https://www.angloinfo.com/brazil/how-to/page/brazil-healthca... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil#Ethnicities_by_region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil#E...
    - Amezarak 10y ago
      Keeping to the comparison with Russia, I think the data bears out my point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State... That's a very different story than the Russia link you provided, which, as I suspected, says that the country is mostly a) ethnically Russian and b) the rest are minorities the Russians have been dealing with for most of their history. I've even seen suggestions that the "White" category is perhaps too coarse, with observable cultural and political differences between whites of English descent and whites of German descent. There's another pertinent datapoint, which is that Russia has a very low TFR and is experiencing a population decline and is pursuing policies to reverse that, as it is seen as a major problem. The US, on the other hand, continues to grow, largely because of immigration; policies to increase the number of children are superfluous. That said, as I mentioned earlier, I think that's just a factor. Every country is special and has to be considered on its own terms. Is geographic size a factor? Probably. Is population size a factor? Probably. Is population diversity a factor? Probably. Is some remnant of the mythological self-reliance of American frontierism a factor? Probably. Is the rivalry with the USSR a factor? Probably. Moreover, while I personally would like at a minimum a year of paid parental leave, the idea that parental leave represents Forward Progress and any country that doesn't have it is backward and deserves to be shamed is rather disturbing. Instead of trying to shame America to conform to somebody elses' norms, we should probably work instead on convincing them that it's a worthwhile and workable idea, and that the potential tradeoffs are worth making.

by TheCapn 10y ago

dangerlibrary 10y ago

The demographic you are failing to take into account is private corporations, who have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, and whose board members believe they have an overriding ethical obligation to protect and increase shareholder value.

jcbeard 10y ago
The government, led by the people, has an ethical obligation to extend rights to parents...to include longer maternity and paternity leave for all gendered categories of parents.
- bitJericho 10y ago
  The us government is led by the rich.

avar 10y ago

The parent comment by munificent is just making the lazy go-to excuse for US policies that it's so big / special / whatever that everything has to be different there. Notice how these lazy comparisons never make any specific comparisons to other countries that would trivially refute their claims, such as Russia having 4x less population density than the US, but still somehow managing to have a federally mandated parental leave. If it were true that it's just so hard for people far removed from one another geographically to relate to each other wouldn't it follow that the situation in Russia would be 4x worse than the US?

Amezarak 10y ago
Well, I would suspect that the US is much more culturally diverse than Russia. Something like a quarter of all US residents are foreign born or have a foreign born parent; that's reflected in cities like NYC. I am doubtful the numbers are similar for Russia, which is very large and does have some ethnic and cultural diversity, but has been dealing with the same groups for much longer and probably in more of an authoritarian way. Not a defense of America; I do think the difference is more complicated than just the size.
- Sabinus 10y ago
  Does it follow then that America might have an easier time if they were to encourage more cultural and racial homogeneity?
- m_mueller 10y ago
  [Insert default arguments of why America is special] 1.) big and sparse. oh wait.. 2.) culturally diverse. oh wait.. [1][2][3][4] I only have one explanation for social service scarcity in the US: It seems to be dominated by a culture where you'd rather have large parts of the population suffer rather than having anyone chip in for the bill of groups of people (s)he doesn't identify with. It's the idea of self responsibility pushed to an unhealthy extreme. At the same time when talking to people in the US personally (almost) everyone seems to be helpful and nice, much more so than in most European countries actually. That dichotomy is something I'm really struggling with, i.e. I fail to find a good explanation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_... [2] http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/11/11/maternity-leave-allowance-china.html http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/11/11/maternity-leav... [3] https://www.angloinfo.com/brazil/how-to/page/brazil-healthcare-pregnancy-birth-maternity-leave https://www.angloinfo.com/brazil/how-to/page/brazil-healthca... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil#Ethnicities_by_region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil#E...
  - Amezarak 10y ago
    Keeping to the comparison with Russia, I think the data bears out my point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State... That's a very different story than the Russia link you provided, which, as I suspected, says that the country is mostly a) ethnically Russian and b) the rest are minorities the Russians have been dealing with for most of their history. I've even seen suggestions that the "White" category is perhaps too coarse, with observable cultural and political differences between whites of English descent and whites of German descent. There's another pertinent datapoint, which is that Russia has a very low TFR and is experiencing a population decline and is pursuing policies to reverse that, as it is seen as a major problem. The US, on the other hand, continues to grow, largely because of immigration; policies to increase the number of children are superfluous. That said, as I mentioned earlier, I think that's just a factor. Every country is special and has to be considered on its own terms. Is geographic size a factor? Probably. Is population size a factor? Probably. Is population diversity a factor? Probably. Is some remnant of the mythological self-reliance of American frontierism a factor? Probably. Is the rivalry with the USSR a factor? Probably. Moreover, while I personally would like at a minimum a year of paid parental leave, the idea that parental leave represents Forward Progress and any country that doesn't have it is backward and deserves to be shamed is rather disturbing. Instead of trying to shame America to conform to somebody elses' norms, we should probably work instead on convincing them that it's a worthwhile and workable idea, and that the potential tradeoffs are worth making.