4 ms·

> From an individual homo economicus perspective, paying people who have heavy life obligations like kids less than people who can work tons of hours is rationa

by kefka 9y ago

> From an individual homo economicus perspective, paying people who have heavy life obligations like kids less than people who can work tons of hours is rational. Oh absolutely. That's why I'm coming at this from a purely business/economics viewpoint. It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing. I'd also argue, it's very much true (as in, fact practiced regularly, not a value judgement). > That's why government regulation is important if we want a different result. I agree. However, the majority party in office (in the USA) now wants nothing more than to repeal any and every business law and regulation. I do not see us little people with getting these kinds of equality laws passed. If anything, I'd expect that the meager protections women have would arguably be demolished.

Grustaf 9y ago
>It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them. If women would be penalised for taking time off they would be less inclined to have children, at least if they have a well paying job. The long term consequences of that are quite bad. Greedy algorithms are never optimal in macro economics. The local maxima are never global.
- geebee 9y ago
  It is a problem. In some ways, this is why I'm ok with the government setting the rules, sometimes fairly strict ones. One example might be laws limiting business hours, or laws the make a certain amount of vacation leave mandatory. They violate individual freedom, but they may also make it possible for people to close shop or take a vacation. Sweden recognized this problem - it created very generous programs for women, but realized that this was providing an incentive for women to leave the workforce, often in their 30s, an important decade for rising through the ranks, while men remained in the workforce. They then created more generous incentives for me, but discovered that the men weren't taking them - partly because of social and organizational pressure not to (perhaps related to the article I posted above). They finally created a very generous "use it or lose it" system where the men were just walking away from too much benefit not to take the policy, and I believe launched a major campaign to get men to take the leave. The idea is to create enough of a critical mass that the "male child leave" stigma would fade and this would become the norm.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    Well Sweden doesn't really have the same views on "individual freedom" as the US, but even here a lot of people were upset at the "mandatory" 3 months to be taken by the father when it was instituted. Even as a fairly libertarian person, I didn't mind it, since it's just an option, nobody's forcing anyone to take it. And nudging fathers to take a more active role in child rearing is definitely a good investment for society, even economically speaking. I'm not sure it had much of an effect though, at least in my circles I haven't noticed any big shift in paternal leave taking. And I must say that at certainly for the last 10 years there's been no stigma at all around it, again in my circles.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  > Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them. Right, it's a tragedy of the commons type situation. Each individual actor (business) is incentivized to focus on just what solely benefits them the most, but if every actor does that, everyone ends up losing.

by kefka 9y ago

Grustaf 9y ago

>It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them. If women would be penalised for taking time off they would be less inclined to have children, at least if they have a well paying job. The long term consequences of that are quite bad. Greedy algorithms are never optimal in macro economics. The local maxima are never global.

geebee 9y ago
It is a problem. In some ways, this is why I'm ok with the government setting the rules, sometimes fairly strict ones. One example might be laws limiting business hours, or laws the make a certain amount of vacation leave mandatory. They violate individual freedom, but they may also make it possible for people to close shop or take a vacation. Sweden recognized this problem - it created very generous programs for women, but realized that this was providing an incentive for women to leave the workforce, often in their 30s, an important decade for rising through the ranks, while men remained in the workforce. They then created more generous incentives for me, but discovered that the men weren't taking them - partly because of social and organizational pressure not to (perhaps related to the article I posted above). They finally created a very generous "use it or lose it" system where the men were just walking away from too much benefit not to take the policy, and I believe launched a major campaign to get men to take the leave. The idea is to create enough of a critical mass that the "male child leave" stigma would fade and this would become the norm.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  Well Sweden doesn't really have the same views on "individual freedom" as the US, but even here a lot of people were upset at the "mandatory" 3 months to be taken by the father when it was instituted. Even as a fairly libertarian person, I didn't mind it, since it's just an option, nobody's forcing anyone to take it. And nudging fathers to take a more active role in child rearing is definitely a good investment for society, even economically speaking. I'm not sure it had much of an effect though, at least in my circles I haven't noticed any big shift in paternal leave taking. And I must say that at certainly for the last 10 years there's been no stigma at all around it, again in my circles.
TulliusCicero 9y ago
> Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them. Right, it's a tragedy of the commons type situation. Each individual actor (business) is incentivized to focus on just what solely benefits them the most, but if every actor does that, everyone ends up losing.