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One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. If I gave you the choice of two employees, one of whom would take 12 weeks of paid leave and one who
by rednerrus 8y ago
One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave.
If I gave you the choice of two employees, one of whom would take 12 weeks of paid leave and one who would take 2 weeks of paid leave, which would you choose?
If you offered both sexes 12 weeks of paid leave, you wouldn't have to make this decision.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoI agree completely. I think this effect of paternity leave is under appreciated by men and greatly feared by employers. I can understand how an employer gets concerned about an employee being gone for 3 or 4 months and whether or not they admit it selecting/biasing against that possibility in hiring rather than just figuring out how to deal with it.
- andrewclunn 8y agoWouldn't be enough. So many women choose not to come back to work full-time. It's a huge waste to train them, and very dangerous to move them up the corporate ladder.
- zucked 8y agoI believe this is the path forward, as well. Using your example above in a gender-blind scenario, I can't imagine a scenario where a hiring manager would't choose the potential employee who would only take 2 weeks leave.
- lovich 8y agoYou'd have to make it mandatory leave. The social pressure is still tilted towards women as care givers and men as providers so more men will end up not using the leave. If it becomes mandatory then it's just a baked in rising to every employee, _and_ will probably do better for society to have both parents get time with their children. I believe some European states solve this by having the state cover ~60% of your wage while on leave so that it's not a giant burden for companies
- Geeek 8y agoThe social and bioligical pressure*. I think we should strive to have equal maternity/paternity leave, but let’s not deny the origins of the current reality.
- untog 8y agoWhy would fathers have biological pressure to spend less time with their children? I'd take five years paternity leave if I could get it.
- Geeek 8y agoFathers can’t breastfeed.
- rosser 8y agoHow is that "biological pressure to spend less time with their children"?
- untog 8y agoYou are giving a reason not to deny a mother time with a child, not a reason for a father to spend less. There is no "biological pressure" that forces fathers to go back to work. (as it happens, fathers can breastfeed, albeit not literally. Mothers can pump breastmilk for fathers to feed to the child, or they can use formula. It's a perfectly viable way to raise a child, and people do)
- progers7 8y agoI don't think this is practical because many men do not take their full paternity leave. For biological reasons alone, the woman needs to take more.
- partiallypro 8y agoYou could simply make it mandatory time off. But either way, he has a point. A company doesn't want to risk hiring someone that might miss a huge swath of time, for any reason. Not in every job but in many jobs, an employee isn't just an employee, they are an investment. If it was mandatory for both sexes though, it would level the playing field.
- to_bpr 8y ago>You could simply make it mandatory time off. Then I won't notify the company when I've had a child. Simple as. Don't consider going down the road of "you must declare what is happening in your private life to your private employer" as someone else did either, without at least considering what an absolute breach of privacy that would involve.
- partiallypro 8y agoIt wouldn't matter, because in the end the company would hire you or promote you with the same expectation as women. It would start to make less and less sense to not take the paternity leave because the opportunity cost would diminish. If you didn't take off, it would be your loss. The system wouldn't be perfect, but it would -help-
- lovich 8y agoWe've already decided as a society, in the US at least, that your right to privacy from your company concerning the existence of your children does not exist. The government is willing and able to inform your employer to garnish your wages when it comes to child support payments. They also know if you take dependents on your tax forms. There are arguments to be made that this right _should_ exist, but since it doesn't currently its not a reason to stop mandatory leave
- NuSkooler 8y agoNot to mention the whole idea that a child only needs to see their mother and not their father is flawed.
- ukj 8y agoI guess I'll be making damn sure to negotiate a pay raise based on the fact I've chosen not to have children! Where do I sign to veto my paternity leave?
- coldtea 8y agoOr, you know, businesses and societies could leave that as a courtesy to just those that did chose to have children -- a group of people that every society that cares about sustaining itself forward should encourage and respect.
- ukj 8y agoSure. Everybody likes grand gestures. Nobody likes paying for them. As a social responsibility it's not on private businesses to cover the cost. Pay for it through taxation. Until then - my choice is a competitive advantage.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoMany countries have maternity leave as a payroll tax (for both genders). Even China has this.
- krschultz 8y agoI'm going to guess you will get more growth in your career by learning how to be empathetic than negotiating with such an asinine argument.
- Alex3917 8y ago> One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. A better solution would just unpaid parental leave for both sexes, with a stipend paid for by the government. The idea of paying people some percentage of their salary while on parental leave is an incredibly regressive policy and should be banned.
- growlist 8y agoA better solution would be that we don't make work the be all and end all of our short lives.
- rocqua 8y agoHow is it regressive that compensation during parental leave depends on salary? Without that, women higher in the career ladder are disincentivized from taking maternity leave. Moreover, you might even get women who earn more on leave than during the job, which is simply weird.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Alex3917 8y ago> How is it regressive that compensation during parental leave depends on salary? People who make more money for working make more money for not working. That's literally the definition of regressive. To quote Wikipedia: "In terms of individual income and wealth, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich: there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer's ability to pay, as measured by assets, consumption, or income."
- Buge 8y agoIf it's a fixed based on your salary, it would be neither regressive, nor progressive. It would be flat. And that's assuming the government takes the money from thin air. If the government gets the money via a progressive tax, then distributes it in a flat manner, it's overall a progressive tax.
- coldtea 8y ago>One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. One of the solutions to this is litigation, like in other countries, and burying any company that does it to the ground (including with consumer backslash and media shaming). "Matching paternity leave" doesn't solve the problem for single mothers -- and it just provides a broader target to discriminate against.
- hexane360 8y agoSymmetric leave would help solve the problem for single mothers. The strategy doesn't rely on both parents getting leave, it relies on everyone at the company getting leave. The flaw with this strategy is it still allows discrimination against men and women who are likely to have babies, even though it discourages discrimination for men against women.
- narag 8y agoOld curse: I wish you sue and win.
- coldtea 8y agoThat might be true for personal affairs (e.g. suing an ex etc) and the mess than entails, but no for suing some business entity that screwed you over.
- Buge 8y ago>it just provides a broader target to discriminate against. Isn't that an improvement? If we could broaden it entirely such that everyone falls under the net of "potentially long leave taking" then effectively there would be no discrimination.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- wincy 8y agoMy wife thinks this is a terrible idea, why should she suffer through my depressed wages to pay for two income families to be subsidized to having dual leave for children? This leave doesn’t come for free. Why should she pay for that when she chooses not to work?
- jonathankoren 8y agoWhat? It’s paid leave. You get your whole salary, but you don’t come to work.
- sokoloff 8y agoYes, and where do you imagine the money comes from?
- jschwartzi 8y agoFrom all of us single people who are likely never going to have children. I'm fine with that. Hell, you can take it out of the mortgage interest deduction that I will never get.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- krschultz 8y agoIf you're going to make a financial argument (as opposed to the moral one), you should take a look at how we fund entitlements in this country. You want population growth. The financial disincentive for having kids is a real problem.
- vkou 8y agoIf you want to make an economic argument, we don't want exponential population growth, unless you are looking forward to an unmitigated ecological disaster. You want a steady population level, whether via births, or immigration, or both.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]