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Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

198 points by prostoalex 8y ago

alkonaut 8y ago
“How do other countries do it?” Well it’s not an employer deciding whether it’s done so organizations just deal with it. And yes it does give effects that last years and disrupt organizations three layers deep. But it happens to all organizations, so it’s not a competitive disadvantage.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Except on a global scale.
  - gallerdude 8y ago
    absolutely, I guess, but these sorts of things (like 40 hour work week) should probably be measured relatively.
  - chefkoch 8y ago
    In Germany we have 12 months parental leave and it seems the country is doing quite well.
    - raymond_goo 8y ago
      google target salden... we are at the verge of a collapse...
    - ido 8y ago
      14 in fact!
    - weinzierl 8y ago
      14 months total if both parents participate and split the time. In practice this is an incentive for men to take part because the couple gains an additional two months of paid leave. I don't have any numbers but from personal experience I'd assume that it works.
    - ar0 8y ago
      Salaries especially for specialist jobs tend to be quite a bit lower in Germany (as is the case in Canada) than in countries like the U.S. or Switzerland which have much less generous parental leave, though. Of course, parental leave is just one variable here, but in a way this is the obvious trade-off: You can have more parental leave and lower salaries, or less parental leave and higher salaries. (The same is true for all other non-monetary benefits of a job such as job protection etc.) On a country-level, both options can work equally well. Me, personally, I would pick the "more parental leave and lower salaries", but I get that other people might feel differently. (Edit: This cuts the other way around, too, by the way. Often people in Germany will complain that people across the border in Switzerland -- or in Silicon Valley -- will earn much more, but they ignore that working days are longer, with less vacation time, less parental leave etc.)
      - chrisco255 8y ago
        Yeah it would be amazing if people could understand that there are big trade-offs with every socialistic policy. U.S. GDP per capita [1] (2018): $65,060 Germany GDP per capita [1] (2018): $49,690 The U.S. earns 22% more per capita than Germany. Imagine if the U.S. implemented policies such that our economy slowed to Germany's per capita rate. At our current GDP of $20.66 trillion, it would wipe over $4 trillion from our GDP. Seeing as the U.S. is the biggest marketplace in the world (in terms of dollars), it would have trickle down effects that would dramatically depress the world economy. [1]: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/USA/DEU/SWE https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/USA/DEU/...
  - corpMaverick 8y ago
    Yes. But the long term and macro benefits also impact on a global scale.
  - tomp 8y ago
    That's why I'm opposed to free trade and want fair trade instead. Like, it's not wrong for e.g. EU to impose a tax on products/services produced by companies abroad that have much less strict environmental/employment laws.
    - prostoalex 8y ago
      Get two men in the room and they will come up with three different ideas of what fair is.
      - Spivak 8y ago
        Trade among nations with comparable or higher labor and environmental standards is free. No need for a notion of fair.
    - anonuser123456 8y ago
      Right, but your definition of 'fair' employment laws might make poor countries unable to compete and thus stay poor. Example: poor countries can't afford the level of worker safety that rich countries can. So do you not trade with them? They then stay poor and work as subsistence farmers, something a lot worse than working in a sweatshop.
      - tomp 8y ago
        You’re right, that’s not good either. We need a better balance. Right now, European companies can just export production to India/China, skirting our environmental laws, making them essentially useless.
  - alkonaut 8y ago
    Anectdotally long parental leaves correlates with high productivity. Doesn’t tell us which way the causation points but there are factors like a large fraction of women in the workforce that pull in the right direction on a national level but don’t help individual companies. I’d support it even if the causation is only the other way - i.e. it’s a reform people in rich productive countries choose to spend on.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    At a global scale, the nation that respects the fewest human rights will win when it comes to low cost labor. My opinion is that we should never ascribe to be (or be competitive with) that nation, however.
- rb808 8y ago
  In reality its not that simple. Its often extra difficult for 30-35 year old women to find new jobs as employers are wary. Its also more difficult for women to return to work after taking longer off. Discrimination lawsuits are more common in Europe from what I've seen.
  - alkonaut 8y ago
    That’s why it’s parental leave not maternal leave. Women are usually away longer but it’s not uncommon in countries with long parental leaves to have some part (e.g 1/3) reserved for each parent. Employers aren’t wary if a 30 year old man is as likely to leave for 6 months as a woman is to leave for 12. Orgs don’t avoid hiring all 30year olds out of fear they might become parents. Other reforms such as free/subsidized daycare can be needed if you want to help parents return to work after the kid is 1-2 years.
    - wolfgke 8y ago
      > Employers aren’t wary if a 30 year old man is as likely to leave for 6 months as a woman is to leave for 12. Orgs don’t avoid hiring all 30year olds out of fear they might become parents. If you don't know who will leave, just do some statistics. Currently, it is more women. If fashion changes, it might be that an age group that has not completed family planning will simply be discriminated against.
      - alkonaut 8y ago
        Some stats from where I am: 30% of parental leave days are used by men (was 10% in mid 90s). A clear majority of dads do go on some leave, and of course almost all women do. Of 480 days to share between parents 90 days are reserved for each, meaning it’s a typical minimum for the father to do at least the 90. A more normal division is 12 months for the mother and 4-5 for the father. Of course the stats say women leave more days. But importantly men take enough leave that it’s starting to not make that much difference e.g to an employer.
fastbeef 8y ago
I’m not surprised. This is so different to how workplaces are usually run in the US that organizations, or society even, has no institutional memory on how to deal with it. In Sweden, where 400+ days of parental leave has been mandatory for years organization have adapted and learned patterns and ways to deal with people dissappearing for around a year. It’s a shame the Gates Foundation didn’t research this better before diving in.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  People aren't easily replaceable...especially high talent individuals. It's also a big burden for an organization to pay for non-productive workers. And if someone has several children in a row...then what? What are the limits?
  - minikites 8y ago
    Are you implying that someone will try to game the system by perpetually having children for a decade or more?
  - tomp 8y ago
    > It's also a big burden for an organization to pay for non-productive workers That's absolutely true, but hopefully the government (or social security) pays for it. Same as for medical leave (in Slovenia, only after 30 days though - first month is paid by the employer). That way, the government is supporting entrepreneurship and small businesses, which would otherwise be disproportionally affected by a single person leaving (in a big company, the law of large numbers makes it easy to predict, and therefore manage, absences).
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - fastbeef 8y ago
    Its paid by the government, funded by taxes, at the same level as sick leave/disability. Some (most) companies actually chip in a little (or a lot) to ease the income loss as a perk.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
erentz 8y ago
To be somewhat fair this is still an amazing benefit: “It’s now capping parental leaves at six months and giving parents a taxable $20,000 stipend to defray the costs of childcare.” In the context that they are doing this while few other American organizations do it, and not that many other countries do something this generous.
- hesdeadjim 8y ago
  Yea, the article title can practically considered clickbait when this is the resultant change in benefits. Neither my wife or I had a need to be home for an entire year with our child. Three months for me would've been perfect, six would've been a vacation, and six months plus $20k to cover my daycare expenses for the year would've been... well, words fail me.
  - bargl 8y ago
    OK, I read this felt a wave of relief. I'm not the only one. 1 year off sounds like torture to me. I'm not saying 1 year with my kid is torture. 1 year in the Caribbean would also be torture to me. I get cabin fever after a few weeks. My company did give me 1 month and it was awesome. I was also very happy to return to work after 2 (1 month unpaid). It was refreshing to engage that part of my brain again.
    - hesdeadjim 8y ago
      Yea I have zero desire to be off from work for that long. I took a sabbatical/break between projects from May until around September this year. I put myself under no real pressure to do anything, and during the weekdays I was free to go mountain biking and do whatever else I felt like. Yet still I worked on random projects for about 60% of the time the entire break. I just crave the deep flow state that comes from building things too much.
  - sampo 8y ago
    > six would've been a vacation I assume you were at home together with your wife? Or are you calling staying at home alone with a 6 months to 1 year old toddler a vacation?
beart 8y ago
As a parent, I would much rather take that year and use it to shorten my normal working week for as long as possible. With 260 working days a year, you could work 4 days a week for the first five years of your child's life.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Why not just not work for five years, and have the other parent work?
  - ahakki 8y ago
    Money
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      And the potential death of one's career.
- Haydos585x2 8y ago
  In Australia that's not unheard of. Plenty of women (and men) will go to a 3 or 4 day work week for a longer stretch rather than taking a full 12 months off.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    I know a couple of people who permanently negotiated 4 day working weeks after becoming parents. One of them has his daughter at some sort of parent run day care, where each of the parents spends one day a week staffing it, so they all work 4 days (at most) and spend at least one day looking after all the kids.
- nasalgoat 8y ago
  Who's watching the kid the four days you're working? Watching a baby is a full time job.
simonsarris 8y ago
> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, what do you do? Just go without a CFO/mechanic for the year? Or do you start the hiring search, bring in another person as a temp CFO for a year? What if you can't find a temp, so you hire someone? Is the person entitled to their old job back? Do you fire the new person or the old one? What if the person takes parental leave again after 1 month back? Do you accept that you've torpedoed some role? Do you try to slowly phase out this person's job description and offload their work onto their coworkers? More succinctly, what if someone is definitely necessary in the near-day-to-day, and does not do work that is interchangeable with other employees? I'm not trying to make some kind of gotcha. I really don't know the answer, and I figured the article would answer what seem like extremely obvious questions that arise, but it didn't. I suspect that firms have learned to deal with it, but by doing things like passively selecting against women and younger people for critical roles. Is that how they manage? Is that an improvement? There's also something unsettling about "here's how [countries where the native birth rate is pretty much 0 or 1 babies] do parental leave!" feels a bit like... the women already did half the corporation's work for them.
- otoburb 8y ago
  >>Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, what do you do? Just go without a CFO/mechanic for the year? Or do you start the hiring search, bring in another person as a temp CFO for a year? What if you can't find a temp, so you hire someone? Canadian companies will try to hire ahead of the parental leave for 1 year contracts, and stipulate ahead of time that the contract is exactly that - a short-term, time-boxed employment duration. Sometimes there is the option depending on performance and/or business outlooks that the person's contract can be extended or converted to a FTE (assuming they were only hired as a contractor, which may or may not be the case). >Is the person entitled to their old job back? Do you fire the new person or the old one? Yes, the person is entitled to their old job back by law. >What if the person takes parental leave again after 1 month back? Do you accept that you've torpedoed some role? Do you try to slowly phase out this person's job description and offload their work onto their coworkers? Usually there is a minimum time back, which I thought was 3 months back, but don't have the citation handy. Canadian companies (and I'm sure other non-Canadian companies that operate in countries with similar parental leave durations) will all handle the ripple effects in different ways. Some will offload to others in the team (probably in larger companies?), or simply hire for that role for a 9-12 month contract. >More succinctly, what if someone is definitely necessary in the near-day-to-day, and does not do work that is interchangeable with other employees? In this scenario, the company usually has 2-3 months to figure out a contingency plan. There is a disruptive effect, but it's not really any different than managing for the "bus/lottery factor". >I suspect that firms have learned to deal with it, but by doing things like passively selecting against women and younger people for critical roles. Is that how they manage? Is that an improvement? This is a legitimate question. I think this is one of the reasons why the wording is so careful about this being about parental leave, and not just maternal leave. I think this concern and potential bias runs through every company owner's head at some point, but thankfully these laws make it such that it would be discrimination if this point were used in the hiring process and I hope, at some level, acts as a deterrant or diminishes the frequency of this bias in the hiring process.
rb808 8y ago
I once worked with a guy who had 4 children in 5 years. He took a lot of parental leave, sick days and often slacked off early. As soon as the last baby was stable he quit for a new job. Companies and teams that are too generous get shafted.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  Sounds like he's the sort of guy that would work the system no matter what - he could be an argument against sick days or flexible hours as well. There will always be people like that, but if the societal good outweighs the few bad apples, I'd argue that's a plus in general.
  - cheesymuffin 8y ago
    Yeah, it's really unfortunate when someone cares more about raising well-adjusted kids than the Company.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      That's true. Not only is one person being bad not a strong argument for not endorsing something, but this person could be actually doing good for his family - caring for his kids or something, and just not sharing the information.
    - mrmuagi 8y ago
      How is having 0.8 kids/year over 5 years & shirking job responsibilities the spitting image of someone who is raising well-adjusted kids? If the person doesn't care about the company why should the company care about the person -- outside the legal obligations enforced by the government obviously... Maybe I am too cynical, and having >= 5 kids is the outlier.
- sveme 8y ago
  Anecdotes should not form the basis of lawmaking.
tathougies 8y ago
I am against one-year parental leaves. My wife and I want ten children. That means ten years off work? How can a company manage? What if I were a less moral man and got two women pregnant a year? I mean, it's not that difficult. Even for faithful men, we plan on trying again (last baby born in December) in a few months. Is it really fair to ask my company to pay for my sex life? More worryingly, what kind of incentive does this set up? Obviously, it would force companies to adopt policies that overall reduce the reproduction rate of society. This can hardly be said to be a good thing. The number of children my wife and I have should be determined by our ability to support them and our willingness to have them. I am perfectly able to support children with my salary, and I'd prefer to spend my time making that salary, rather than having it handed to us. Nevertheless, the main reason I am against them is that it removes all incentives from employers (and government, by extension) to make things better for parents that are actually working. I'd rather have a more flexible schedule and more vacation than one year of parental leave. Or to live in a society where only one parent has to work.
- Aloha 8y ago
  You dont need to take the whole year.
  - freefal 8y ago
    Yes, but the fact that he could creates a strong incentive for the company to identify such people and not hire them in the first place.
    - tathougies 8y ago
      I mean, yeah. If this were the policy mandated by the state, I certainly wouldn't hire me.
  - tathougies 8y ago
    I don't see why anyone in his/her self-interest would not. If I could take all the time in the world to play with babies and be paid my current salary to do it, that's honestly my dream life.
bargl 8y ago
The fact that after they backed off of the leave they are giving out a 20K bonus for child care is amazing in and of itself. I'm surprised that's not emphasized more. They probably also have very flexible work environment for parents so that when daycare's are closed and other issues crop up the parents can get back in there. I'm a dad of 2, 2 years and 5 year. I don't know if I'd want a year off to stay home with the kids. I'd have loved to get 3 months instead of the 1 month i did get but a year... That just sounds like a lot of cabin fever to me. I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate it, so I'm 100% not knocking it at all. This new benefit is more attractive to me at least.
- fastbeef 8y ago
  I have to say, the first day at work after 9 months of parental leave is... sublime. To be able to go to the bathroom and close the door is a pleasure you don’t know until you have to go without. As an aside, what happens to children in the US between 1 month until they start kindergarten (and at what age)?
  - dyarosla 8y ago
    Private daycare or nannies fill the gap.
    - bradlys 8y ago
      There is also stay at home parents. Somewhere around 20%. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-account-for-about-one-in-five-u-s-parents/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home...
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      Or family member provides daycare, or Mom quits her job (not to be gender biased, but it breaks that way because of breastfeeding). Private daycare for very young children can be tough and expensive, and nannies/au pairs can be more than the take home of a single parent in a household with two working parents.
  - 8y ago
throwawaysea 8y ago
I'm fine with this. They have to strike a reasonable and sustainable balance. Thinking more broadly, I am not sure it makes sense to subsidize having more children. Sustaining the standard of living we expect today with the population numbers we have is simply not viable, since those standards carry heavy externalities.
bradlys 8y ago
Didn't know they had such an extremely generous benefit. 52 weeks of paid time off is a huge benefit. I think people here are underestimating how huge that is - it is far better than any country. I don't see any countries that offer 100% PTO for parental leave. Most cap it at $XXX/week or some percentage like 50-66% that is a far cry from 100%. (Which I assume still has a true upper limit but isn't well documented in articles) Personally, I can't imagine having kids here in the bay area unless I finally hit big startup riches or get a job at FAANG. A month isn't enough time off and unemployment is going to be severely financially draining when state benefits won't even pay half my rent (And the financial burden of health insurance will probably devour most of that before it even gets to paying rent anyway). C'est la vie.
- maaaats 8y ago
  Most employers of high-skilled/paid workers in Norway pay the gap between your current salary and what the government pays.
- sampo 8y ago
  Norway gives 14+14+49 weeks at 100% pay.
groestl 8y ago
We (Austria) have up to 1063 days of paid parental leave (paid for by social security), if both parents decide to take it. It seems our companies manage :)
- bpicolo 8y ago
  > paid for by social security This seems to be the key in countries with similar policies. You wouldn't see that system grow in the US as it stands, because companies pay for leave.
torpfactory 8y ago
Isn’t a solution to allow parents to work part time instead of being completely off or on? I feel like most people could still make valuable contributions at 50% time, at least for knowledge workers. Maybe like build up from time off back to full time over many months?
James_Owens_69 8y ago
How about not hiring women in the first place and letting them stay home with children?
zaroth 8y ago
Guaranteeing a job opening (and presumably the same position, or at least the same salary) for a year is a huge ask. I suppose there are two problems. One is paying partial or full salary during the leave, and the other is getting a job when you’re ready to return. The first problem is easy to solve just like unemployment, except that in this case it’s paid based on voluntary leave. Since companies don’t make the decision, companies wouldn’t be penalized for having employees take the leave like they can be with unemployment though. The second issue of finding a place to work when you’re ready to return is tricky. It’s absolutely unfair in certain situations for the company and particularly the specific team for someone to take a year leave and have to hold their spot. But I also understand you want to minimize friction of returning to work. In many cases the person taking leave isn’t doing anything particularly specialized and it’s a complete non-issue. I don’t know how you might try to codify how specialized a position is other than a salary cap. For example, if you’re paid less than $X and the company has over 50 employees, your position is guaranteed. Over $X or 50 and under employees and you have a job search at the end of the paid leave.
nottorp 8y ago
Summary: countries with mandatory parental leave have the parents paid at least partially by those high social security taxes, so it's no problem to hire a replacement. If the company has to pay the parental leave and the replacement, it's of course more difficult. Easy enough...
randyrand 8y ago
My mom had 4 children within 7 years. It's crazy to think someone could be employed somewhere 7 years and only work 3. You'd have to hire 2.3 people to get 1 full-time employee!
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  > It's crazy to think someone could be employed somewhere 7 years and only work 3. Alternative take: It's humane to think that someone who had four kids wouldn't lose their job because they had four kids.
  - randyrand 8y ago
    Is it? Having 4 kids is not exactly something anyone has to do. Where we spend our time is a choice. If someone decides to spend significantly less time working to raise 4 kids, is it really inhumane to allow the employer to replace them with someone who wants to spend more time working?
    - qgsrw3fd 8y ago
      Actually yes, we definitely must encourage having more kids.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    "It's humane to think that someone who had four kids wouldn't lose their job because they had four kids." It might be more socially beneficial for someone who's going to have 4 kids in 7 years to simply not work at all, and mind the kids. It's really hard to come in-and-out of most high performing jobs, and if it's a low performing job, well then it won't cover the cost of day care. We can try to make things more fair, but we can't have everything we want as individuals or citizens. Also - here in Quebec they have cheap childcare which I think is an even better idea than long maternity leave. Having kids in Quebec no longer totally 'breaks the bank' and basically the cost of rearing kids is kind of 'spread out' over longer period of time, like a kind of 'kid insurance' - you're probably going to have one, so costs are pooled early on.
randyrand 8y ago
It seems very odd to me that parental leave is paid for by companies and not by taxes/society. It completely messes up incentives. Should it really be the case that if you're unemployed when you give birth that you have go a significant time without work? Or if you start you 1-year leave 5 weeks into a new job that the company has to pay you for a year?
- duderific 8y ago
  > It seems very odd to me that parental leave is paid for by companies and not by taxes/society. It completely messes up incentives. Indeed. The same could be said for health care.
tgtweak 8y ago
I kind of feel, and this is simply based on the personal observations of a few dozen parental leaves (including a few in my own family) that it's not so much the duration of time, but the ease back into work that is the important factor in reaching maximum balance for the family and company. I think 6 months off (26 weeks) is a good number, but spreadable over 18 months at the will of the parent. I feel this would make things much better than a cold-cut 6 months then back into the fire that a traditional 6 month leave would garner. I see a 3 months of full time off, followed with 2 days a week for 3 months, then 3 days for 2 more months before returning in full would be more beneficial to most companies and families to avoid the "that resource is gone for more than a quarter and needs to be replaced" conflict that happens during a 6 or 12 month "cold turkey" approach. I've also seen noticeable anxiety in mothers about returning to the workplace after a 12 month absence, compared to a 3 month. I see the Canadian system being praised a lot in these comments, and in fact there are many laudable benefits to the system, but several acute shortcomings which are often overlooked when touting socialized parental leave. The system is firstly paid by deductions made to all salaries, which differs from an employer-paid system where the employer pays the leave. Under the Canadian system, if a company decides to pay an employee for the period, the government contributes that much less. This has a chilling effect on companies paying for leave, where almost all do not since there is no credit to employees working for a company which offers this, and individuals are still taxed the same on this portion. Additionally, it is a maximum of 12 months split between the father and mother, and depending on the duration and the % of father or mother, is a sliding scale between 50% and 75% of either your trailing salary for 6 months or a maximum of $60,000 per year, whichever is less. This makes it very difficult for a single breadwinner to support a family of 3 for a period of 1 year off of this benefit alone. In the majority of cases I'm familiar with, those individuals who took their 2 weeks and returned to work simply because the proposed benefit is not enough to pay the bills, thereby forfeiting tax benefits that they paid for and will continue to pay towards for the rest of their salaried life. And while you do stop contributing to this for the year once you pass $60,000 in pay for the year, there is no "exemption" if you don't use it and certainly no "payout" if you don't. In addition to this, you are taxed at your marginal tax % on any benefits you receive from this program, making it even less palatable for someone in a high tax bracket looking to take several months of leave. Someone in this tax bracket is usually working in a role that requires specialized knowledge or skills and are by that very nature harder to replace/restaff - even looking away from the impact to the company, taking that leave in many cases results in making some career sacrifices for that parent. A 3 month fully paid leave (to both parents) with no tax deduction would be preferable to the current system in almost all cases I've seen.
wittedhaddock 8y ago
They ought to receive overwhelming congratulations and support for testing the idea How do we create a culture that totally celebrates the process of experimentation even if the results from the result test aren't the pie in the sky we hoped for?
sergers 8y ago
In Canada you can now take 18 months shared paternal leave. First 12 months you are entitled to employment insurance which is a certain percentage of your income. The next 6 months are unpaid. Our recent company ethics training had a interesting scenario on maternity leave discrimination and comments. Some work places if you are key employee in some aspect entice you with pay, more flexible working conditions or provided daycare for coming back early. My company deals with it by hiring contract workers. Some content could take years to learn, so we recently shifted the core duties to remaining members and gave the contract worker remedial/administrative tasks which we all hated any ways. Overall things still function smoothly - however we have an interesting scenario coming up in the next few months where one employee is retiring and two are going on paternity leave (me being one, but only taking a month off using vacation as my wife plans To hog the paternity leave lol... it does make sense financially. It will be interestinghow my company handles losing 3 key members of a 7 person team(atleast I will be gone a month only)
garyrichardson 8y ago
This is the same level of horseshit as Medical coverage for all and single payer. Maybe it wasn’t working the foundation because the US has such a pent up demand for parental leave that people who want to have families target working there. My company recently rolled out some pretty sweet parental policies and lo and behold we have a bunch of people taking advantage of it. Here in Canada, there is always someone on parental leave. You just deal with it. Generally speaking, execs and c levels operate at a different financial level and parental leave is not as life changing as it is for your typical middle class worker. America, get it together and start treating your people with dignity and respect. You’re a first world country. Your people deserve better.

198 points by prostoalex 8y ago

“How do other countries do it?” Well it’s not an employer deciding whether it’s done so organizations just deal with it. And yes it does give effects that last years and disrupt organizations three layers deep. But it happens to all organizations, so it’s not a competitive disadvantage.

chrisco255 8y ago
Except on a global scale.
- gallerdude 8y ago
  absolutely, I guess, but these sorts of things (like 40 hour work week) should probably be measured relatively.
- chefkoch 8y ago
  In Germany we have 12 months parental leave and it seems the country is doing quite well.
  - raymond_goo 8y ago
    google target salden... we are at the verge of a collapse...
  - ido 8y ago
    14 in fact!
  - weinzierl 8y ago
    14 months total if both parents participate and split the time. In practice this is an incentive for men to take part because the couple gains an additional two months of paid leave. I don't have any numbers but from personal experience I'd assume that it works.
  - ar0 8y ago
    Salaries especially for specialist jobs tend to be quite a bit lower in Germany (as is the case in Canada) than in countries like the U.S. or Switzerland which have much less generous parental leave, though. Of course, parental leave is just one variable here, but in a way this is the obvious trade-off: You can have more parental leave and lower salaries, or less parental leave and higher salaries. (The same is true for all other non-monetary benefits of a job such as job protection etc.) On a country-level, both options can work equally well. Me, personally, I would pick the "more parental leave and lower salaries", but I get that other people might feel differently. (Edit: This cuts the other way around, too, by the way. Often people in Germany will complain that people across the border in Switzerland -- or in Silicon Valley -- will earn much more, but they ignore that working days are longer, with less vacation time, less parental leave etc.)
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      Yeah it would be amazing if people could understand that there are big trade-offs with every socialistic policy. U.S. GDP per capita [1] (2018): $65,060 Germany GDP per capita [1] (2018): $49,690 The U.S. earns 22% more per capita than Germany. Imagine if the U.S. implemented policies such that our economy slowed to Germany's per capita rate. At our current GDP of $20.66 trillion, it would wipe over $4 trillion from our GDP. Seeing as the U.S. is the biggest marketplace in the world (in terms of dollars), it would have trickle down effects that would dramatically depress the world economy. [1]: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/USA/DEU/SWE https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/USA/DEU/...
- corpMaverick 8y ago
  Yes. But the long term and macro benefits also impact on a global scale.
- tomp 8y ago
  That's why I'm opposed to free trade and want fair trade instead. Like, it's not wrong for e.g. EU to impose a tax on products/services produced by companies abroad that have much less strict environmental/employment laws.
  - prostoalex 8y ago
    Get two men in the room and they will come up with three different ideas of what fair is.
    - Spivak 8y ago
      Trade among nations with comparable or higher labor and environmental standards is free. No need for a notion of fair.
  - anonuser123456 8y ago
    Right, but your definition of 'fair' employment laws might make poor countries unable to compete and thus stay poor. Example: poor countries can't afford the level of worker safety that rich countries can. So do you not trade with them? They then stay poor and work as subsistence farmers, something a lot worse than working in a sweatshop.
    - tomp 8y ago
      You’re right, that’s not good either. We need a better balance. Right now, European companies can just export production to India/China, skirting our environmental laws, making them essentially useless.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  Anectdotally long parental leaves correlates with high productivity. Doesn’t tell us which way the causation points but there are factors like a large fraction of women in the workforce that pull in the right direction on a national level but don’t help individual companies. I’d support it even if the causation is only the other way - i.e. it’s a reform people in rich productive countries choose to spend on.
- falcolas 8y ago
  At a global scale, the nation that respects the fewest human rights will win when it comes to low cost labor. My opinion is that we should never ascribe to be (or be competitive with) that nation, however.
rb808 8y ago
In reality its not that simple. Its often extra difficult for 30-35 year old women to find new jobs as employers are wary. Its also more difficult for women to return to work after taking longer off. Discrimination lawsuits are more common in Europe from what I've seen.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  That’s why it’s parental leave not maternal leave. Women are usually away longer but it’s not uncommon in countries with long parental leaves to have some part (e.g 1/3) reserved for each parent. Employers aren’t wary if a 30 year old man is as likely to leave for 6 months as a woman is to leave for 12. Orgs don’t avoid hiring all 30year olds out of fear they might become parents. Other reforms such as free/subsidized daycare can be needed if you want to help parents return to work after the kid is 1-2 years.
  - wolfgke 8y ago
    > Employers aren’t wary if a 30 year old man is as likely to leave for 6 months as a woman is to leave for 12. Orgs don’t avoid hiring all 30year olds out of fear they might become parents. If you don't know who will leave, just do some statistics. Currently, it is more women. If fashion changes, it might be that an age group that has not completed family planning will simply be discriminated against.
    - alkonaut 8y ago
      Some stats from where I am: 30% of parental leave days are used by men (was 10% in mid 90s). A clear majority of dads do go on some leave, and of course almost all women do. Of 480 days to share between parents 90 days are reserved for each, meaning it’s a typical minimum for the father to do at least the 90. A more normal division is 12 months for the mother and 4-5 for the father. Of course the stats say women leave more days. But importantly men take enough leave that it’s starting to not make that much difference e.g to an employer.

fastbeef 8y ago

I’m not surprised. This is so different to how workplaces are usually run in the US that organizations, or society even, has no institutional memory on how to deal with it. In Sweden, where 400+ days of parental leave has been mandatory for years organization have adapted and learned patterns and ways to deal with people dissappearing for around a year. It’s a shame the Gates Foundation didn’t research this better before diving in.

chrisco255 8y ago
People aren't easily replaceable...especially high talent individuals. It's also a big burden for an organization to pay for non-productive workers. And if someone has several children in a row...then what? What are the limits?
- minikites 8y ago
  Are you implying that someone will try to game the system by perpetually having children for a decade or more?
- tomp 8y ago
  > It's also a big burden for an organization to pay for non-productive workers That's absolutely true, but hopefully the government (or social security) pays for it. Same as for medical leave (in Slovenia, only after 30 days though - first month is paid by the employer). That way, the government is supporting entrepreneurship and small businesses, which would otherwise be disproportionally affected by a single person leaving (in a big company, the law of large numbers makes it easy to predict, and therefore manage, absences).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- fastbeef 8y ago
  Its paid by the government, funded by taxes, at the same level as sick leave/disability. Some (most) companies actually chip in a little (or a lot) to ease the income loss as a perk.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

erentz 8y ago

To be somewhat fair this is still an amazing benefit: “It’s now capping parental leaves at six months and giving parents a taxable $20,000 stipend to defray the costs of childcare.” In the context that they are doing this while few other American organizations do it, and not that many other countries do something this generous.

hesdeadjim 8y ago
Yea, the article title can practically considered clickbait when this is the resultant change in benefits. Neither my wife or I had a need to be home for an entire year with our child. Three months for me would've been perfect, six would've been a vacation, and six months plus $20k to cover my daycare expenses for the year would've been... well, words fail me.
- bargl 8y ago
  OK, I read this felt a wave of relief. I'm not the only one. 1 year off sounds like torture to me. I'm not saying 1 year with my kid is torture. 1 year in the Caribbean would also be torture to me. I get cabin fever after a few weeks. My company did give me 1 month and it was awesome. I was also very happy to return to work after 2 (1 month unpaid). It was refreshing to engage that part of my brain again.
  - hesdeadjim 8y ago
    Yea I have zero desire to be off from work for that long. I took a sabbatical/break between projects from May until around September this year. I put myself under no real pressure to do anything, and during the weekdays I was free to go mountain biking and do whatever else I felt like. Yet still I worked on random projects for about 60% of the time the entire break. I just crave the deep flow state that comes from building things too much.
- sampo 8y ago
  > six would've been a vacation I assume you were at home together with your wife? Or are you calling staying at home alone with a 6 months to 1 year old toddler a vacation?

beart 8y ago

As a parent, I would much rather take that year and use it to shorten my normal working week for as long as possible. With 260 working days a year, you could work 4 days a week for the first five years of your child's life.

ams6110 8y ago
Why not just not work for five years, and have the other parent work?
- ahakki 8y ago
  Money
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    And the potential death of one's career.
Haydos585x2 8y ago
In Australia that's not unheard of. Plenty of women (and men) will go to a 3 or 4 day work week for a longer stretch rather than taking a full 12 months off.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  I know a couple of people who permanently negotiated 4 day working weeks after becoming parents. One of them has his daughter at some sort of parent run day care, where each of the parents spends one day a week staffing it, so they all work 4 days (at most) and spend at least one day looking after all the kids.
nasalgoat 8y ago
Who's watching the kid the four days you're working? Watching a baby is a full time job.

simonsarris 8y ago

> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, what do you do? Just go without a CFO/mechanic for the year? Or do you start the hiring search, bring in another person as a temp CFO for a year? What if you can't find a temp, so you hire someone? Is the person entitled to their old job back? Do you fire the new person or the old one? What if the person takes parental leave again after 1 month back? Do you accept that you've torpedoed some role? Do you try to slowly phase out this person's job description and offload their work onto their coworkers? More succinctly, what if someone is definitely necessary in the near-day-to-day, and does not do work that is interchangeable with other employees? I'm not trying to make some kind of gotcha. I really don't know the answer, and I figured the article would answer what seem like extremely obvious questions that arise, but it didn't. I suspect that firms have learned to deal with it, but by doing things like passively selecting against women and younger people for critical roles. Is that how they manage? Is that an improvement? There's also something unsettling about "here's how [countries where the native birth rate is pretty much 0 or 1 babies] do parental leave!" feels a bit like... the women already did half the corporation's work for them.

otoburb 8y ago
>>Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, what do you do? Just go without a CFO/mechanic for the year? Or do you start the hiring search, bring in another person as a temp CFO for a year? What if you can't find a temp, so you hire someone? Canadian companies will try to hire ahead of the parental leave for 1 year contracts, and stipulate ahead of time that the contract is exactly that - a short-term, time-boxed employment duration. Sometimes there is the option depending on performance and/or business outlooks that the person's contract can be extended or converted to a FTE (assuming they were only hired as a contractor, which may or may not be the case). >Is the person entitled to their old job back? Do you fire the new person or the old one? Yes, the person is entitled to their old job back by law. >What if the person takes parental leave again after 1 month back? Do you accept that you've torpedoed some role? Do you try to slowly phase out this person's job description and offload their work onto their coworkers? Usually there is a minimum time back, which I thought was 3 months back, but don't have the citation handy. Canadian companies (and I'm sure other non-Canadian companies that operate in countries with similar parental leave durations) will all handle the ripple effects in different ways. Some will offload to others in the team (probably in larger companies?), or simply hire for that role for a 9-12 month contract. >More succinctly, what if someone is definitely necessary in the near-day-to-day, and does not do work that is interchangeable with other employees? In this scenario, the company usually has 2-3 months to figure out a contingency plan. There is a disruptive effect, but it's not really any different than managing for the "bus/lottery factor". >I suspect that firms have learned to deal with it, but by doing things like passively selecting against women and younger people for critical roles. Is that how they manage? Is that an improvement? This is a legitimate question. I think this is one of the reasons why the wording is so careful about this being about parental leave, and not just maternal leave. I think this concern and potential bias runs through every company owner's head at some point, but thankfully these laws make it such that it would be discrimination if this point were used in the hiring process and I hope, at some level, acts as a deterrant or diminishes the frequency of this bias in the hiring process.

rb808 8y ago

I once worked with a guy who had 4 children in 5 years. He took a lot of parental leave, sick days and often slacked off early. As soon as the last baby was stable he quit for a new job. Companies and teams that are too generous get shafted.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
Sounds like he's the sort of guy that would work the system no matter what - he could be an argument against sick days or flexible hours as well. There will always be people like that, but if the societal good outweighs the few bad apples, I'd argue that's a plus in general.
- cheesymuffin 8y ago
  Yeah, it's really unfortunate when someone cares more about raising well-adjusted kids than the Company.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    That's true. Not only is one person being bad not a strong argument for not endorsing something, but this person could be actually doing good for his family - caring for his kids or something, and just not sharing the information.
  - mrmuagi 8y ago
    How is having 0.8 kids/year over 5 years & shirking job responsibilities the spitting image of someone who is raising well-adjusted kids? If the person doesn't care about the company why should the company care about the person -- outside the legal obligations enforced by the government obviously... Maybe I am too cynical, and having >= 5 kids is the outlier.
sveme 8y ago
Anecdotes should not form the basis of lawmaking.

tathougies 8y ago

I am against one-year parental leaves. My wife and I want ten children. That means ten years off work? How can a company manage? What if I were a less moral man and got two women pregnant a year? I mean, it's not that difficult. Even for faithful men, we plan on trying again (last baby born in December) in a few months. Is it really fair to ask my company to pay for my sex life? More worryingly, what kind of incentive does this set up? Obviously, it would force companies to adopt policies that overall reduce the reproduction rate of society. This can hardly be said to be a good thing. The number of children my wife and I have should be determined by our ability to support them and our willingness to have them. I am perfectly able to support children with my salary, and I'd prefer to spend my time making that salary, rather than having it handed to us. Nevertheless, the main reason I am against them is that it removes all incentives from employers (and government, by extension) to make things better for parents that are actually working. I'd rather have a more flexible schedule and more vacation than one year of parental leave. Or to live in a society where only one parent has to work.

Aloha 8y ago
You dont need to take the whole year.
- freefal 8y ago
  Yes, but the fact that he could creates a strong incentive for the company to identify such people and not hire them in the first place.
  - tathougies 8y ago
    I mean, yeah. If this were the policy mandated by the state, I certainly wouldn't hire me.
- tathougies 8y ago
  I don't see why anyone in his/her self-interest would not. If I could take all the time in the world to play with babies and be paid my current salary to do it, that's honestly my dream life.

bargl 8y ago

The fact that after they backed off of the leave they are giving out a 20K bonus for child care is amazing in and of itself. I'm surprised that's not emphasized more. They probably also have very flexible work environment for parents so that when daycare's are closed and other issues crop up the parents can get back in there. I'm a dad of 2, 2 years and 5 year. I don't know if I'd want a year off to stay home with the kids. I'd have loved to get 3 months instead of the 1 month i did get but a year... That just sounds like a lot of cabin fever to me. I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate it, so I'm 100% not knocking it at all. This new benefit is more attractive to me at least.

fastbeef 8y ago
I have to say, the first day at work after 9 months of parental leave is... sublime. To be able to go to the bathroom and close the door is a pleasure you don’t know until you have to go without. As an aside, what happens to children in the US between 1 month until they start kindergarten (and at what age)?
- dyarosla 8y ago
  Private daycare or nannies fill the gap.
  - bradlys 8y ago
    There is also stay at home parents. Somewhere around 20%. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-account-for-about-one-in-five-u-s-parents/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home...
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    Or family member provides daycare, or Mom quits her job (not to be gender biased, but it breaks that way because of breastfeeding). Private daycare for very young children can be tough and expensive, and nannies/au pairs can be more than the take home of a single parent in a household with two working parents.
- 8y ago

throwawaysea 8y ago

I'm fine with this. They have to strike a reasonable and sustainable balance. Thinking more broadly, I am not sure it makes sense to subsidize having more children. Sustaining the standard of living we expect today with the population numbers we have is simply not viable, since those standards carry heavy externalities.

bradlys 8y ago

Didn't know they had such an extremely generous benefit. 52 weeks of paid time off is a huge benefit. I think people here are underestimating how huge that is - it is far better than any country. I don't see any countries that offer 100% PTO for parental leave. Most cap it at $XXX/week or some percentage like 50-66% that is a far cry from 100%. (Which I assume still has a true upper limit but isn't well documented in articles) Personally, I can't imagine having kids here in the bay area unless I finally hit big startup riches or get a job at FAANG. A month isn't enough time off and unemployment is going to be severely financially draining when state benefits won't even pay half my rent (And the financial burden of health insurance will probably devour most of that before it even gets to paying rent anyway). C'est la vie.

maaaats 8y ago
Most employers of high-skilled/paid workers in Norway pay the gap between your current salary and what the government pays.
sampo 8y ago
Norway gives 14+14+49 weeks at 100% pay.

groestl 8y ago

We (Austria) have up to 1063 days of paid parental leave (paid for by social security), if both parents decide to take it. It seems our companies manage :)

bpicolo 8y ago
> paid for by social security This seems to be the key in countries with similar policies. You wouldn't see that system grow in the US as it stands, because companies pay for leave.

torpfactory 8y ago

Isn’t a solution to allow parents to work part time instead of being completely off or on? I feel like most people could still make valuable contributions at 50% time, at least for knowledge workers. Maybe like build up from time off back to full time over many months?

James_Owens_69 8y ago

How about not hiring women in the first place and letting them stay home with children?

zaroth 8y ago

Guaranteeing a job opening (and presumably the same position, or at least the same salary) for a year is a huge ask. I suppose there are two problems. One is paying partial or full salary during the leave, and the other is getting a job when you’re ready to return. The first problem is easy to solve just like unemployment, except that in this case it’s paid based on voluntary leave. Since companies don’t make the decision, companies wouldn’t be penalized for having employees take the leave like they can be with unemployment though. The second issue of finding a place to work when you’re ready to return is tricky. It’s absolutely unfair in certain situations for the company and particularly the specific team for someone to take a year leave and have to hold their spot. But I also understand you want to minimize friction of returning to work. In many cases the person taking leave isn’t doing anything particularly specialized and it’s a complete non-issue. I don’t know how you might try to codify how specialized a position is other than a salary cap. For example, if you’re paid less than $X and the company has over 50 employees, your position is guaranteed. Over $X or 50 and under employees and you have a job search at the end of the paid leave.

nottorp 8y ago

Summary: countries with mandatory parental leave have the parents paid at least partially by those high social security taxes, so it's no problem to hire a replacement. If the company has to pay the parental leave and the replacement, it's of course more difficult. Easy enough...

randyrand 8y ago

My mom had 4 children within 7 years. It's crazy to think someone could be employed somewhere 7 years and only work 3. You'd have to hire 2.3 people to get 1 full-time employee!

Pfhreak 8y ago
> It's crazy to think someone could be employed somewhere 7 years and only work 3. Alternative take: It's humane to think that someone who had four kids wouldn't lose their job because they had four kids.
- randyrand 8y ago
  Is it? Having 4 kids is not exactly something anyone has to do. Where we spend our time is a choice. If someone decides to spend significantly less time working to raise 4 kids, is it really inhumane to allow the employer to replace them with someone who wants to spend more time working?
  - qgsrw3fd 8y ago
    Actually yes, we definitely must encourage having more kids.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "It's humane to think that someone who had four kids wouldn't lose their job because they had four kids." It might be more socially beneficial for someone who's going to have 4 kids in 7 years to simply not work at all, and mind the kids. It's really hard to come in-and-out of most high performing jobs, and if it's a low performing job, well then it won't cover the cost of day care. We can try to make things more fair, but we can't have everything we want as individuals or citizens. Also - here in Quebec they have cheap childcare which I think is an even better idea than long maternity leave. Having kids in Quebec no longer totally 'breaks the bank' and basically the cost of rearing kids is kind of 'spread out' over longer period of time, like a kind of 'kid insurance' - you're probably going to have one, so costs are pooled early on.

randyrand 8y ago

It seems very odd to me that parental leave is paid for by companies and not by taxes/society. It completely messes up incentives. Should it really be the case that if you're unemployed when you give birth that you have go a significant time without work? Or if you start you 1-year leave 5 weeks into a new job that the company has to pay you for a year?

duderific 8y ago
> It seems very odd to me that parental leave is paid for by companies and not by taxes/society. It completely messes up incentives. Indeed. The same could be said for health care.

tgtweak 8y ago

I kind of feel, and this is simply based on the personal observations of a few dozen parental leaves (including a few in my own family) that it's not so much the duration of time, but the ease back into work that is the important factor in reaching maximum balance for the family and company. I think 6 months off (26 weeks) is a good number, but spreadable over 18 months at the will of the parent. I feel this would make things much better than a cold-cut 6 months then back into the fire that a traditional 6 month leave would garner. I see a 3 months of full time off, followed with 2 days a week for 3 months, then 3 days for 2 more months before returning in full would be more beneficial to most companies and families to avoid the "that resource is gone for more than a quarter and needs to be replaced" conflict that happens during a 6 or 12 month "cold turkey" approach. I've also seen noticeable anxiety in mothers about returning to the workplace after a 12 month absence, compared to a 3 month. I see the Canadian system being praised a lot in these comments, and in fact there are many laudable benefits to the system, but several acute shortcomings which are often overlooked when touting socialized parental leave. The system is firstly paid by deductions made to all salaries, which differs from an employer-paid system where the employer pays the leave. Under the Canadian system, if a company decides to pay an employee for the period, the government contributes that much less. This has a chilling effect on companies paying for leave, where almost all do not since there is no credit to employees working for a company which offers this, and individuals are still taxed the same on this portion. Additionally, it is a maximum of 12 months split between the father and mother, and depending on the duration and the % of father or mother, is a sliding scale between 50% and 75% of either your trailing salary for 6 months or a maximum of $60,000 per year, whichever is less. This makes it very difficult for a single breadwinner to support a family of 3 for a period of 1 year off of this benefit alone. In the majority of cases I'm familiar with, those individuals who took their 2 weeks and returned to work simply because the proposed benefit is not enough to pay the bills, thereby forfeiting tax benefits that they paid for and will continue to pay towards for the rest of their salaried life. And while you do stop contributing to this for the year once you pass $60,000 in pay for the year, there is no "exemption" if you don't use it and certainly no "payout" if you don't. In addition to this, you are taxed at your marginal tax % on any benefits you receive from this program, making it even less palatable for someone in a high tax bracket looking to take several months of leave. Someone in this tax bracket is usually working in a role that requires specialized knowledge or skills and are by that very nature harder to replace/restaff - even looking away from the impact to the company, taking that leave in many cases results in making some career sacrifices for that parent. A 3 month fully paid leave (to both parents) with no tax deduction would be preferable to the current system in almost all cases I've seen.

wittedhaddock 8y ago

They ought to receive overwhelming congratulations and support for testing the idea How do we create a culture that totally celebrates the process of experimentation even if the results from the result test aren't the pie in the sky we hoped for?

sergers 8y ago

In Canada you can now take 18 months shared paternal leave. First 12 months you are entitled to employment insurance which is a certain percentage of your income. The next 6 months are unpaid. Our recent company ethics training had a interesting scenario on maternity leave discrimination and comments. Some work places if you are key employee in some aspect entice you with pay, more flexible working conditions or provided daycare for coming back early. My company deals with it by hiring contract workers. Some content could take years to learn, so we recently shifted the core duties to remaining members and gave the contract worker remedial/administrative tasks which we all hated any ways. Overall things still function smoothly - however we have an interesting scenario coming up in the next few months where one employee is retiring and two are going on paternity leave (me being one, but only taking a month off using vacation as my wife plans To hog the paternity leave lol... it does make sense financially. It will be interestinghow my company handles losing 3 key members of a 7 person team(atleast I will be gone a month only)

garyrichardson 8y ago

This is the same level of horseshit as Medical coverage for all and single payer. Maybe it wasn’t working the foundation because the US has such a pent up demand for parental leave that people who want to have families target working there. My company recently rolled out some pretty sweet parental policies and lo and behold we have a bunch of people taking advantage of it. Here in Canada, there is always someone on parental leave. You just deal with it. Generally speaking, execs and c levels operate at a different financial level and parental leave is not as life changing as it is for your typical middle class worker. America, get it together and start treating your people with dignity and respect. You’re a first world country. Your people deserve better.