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It's great that so many companies (including mine) are offering more leave for parents but I don't think the incentives can ever be correct as long as this is a

by habosa 5y ago

It's great that so many companies (including mine) are offering more leave for parents but I don't think the incentives can ever be correct as long as this is a private company benefit. Companies will want to appear generous by giving the leave, but secretly hope you don't use it. Parental leave should be guaranteed by the government and funded via payroll (or similar) taxes. It should not depend on who you work for. A company obviously would prefer you stay at work. Going further, it's probably best for the company if you don't have kids at all. One less thing to pull you away from work. The government is in the opposite position. Governments need population growth. Having a child is, for most people, the biggest impact you have on the economy. You just produced another productive worker/consumer! But right now the incentives are all messed up. My wife is a freelancer. When we start thinking about kids the rational thing for her to do would be to apply for full-time work at a company with generous maternity leave before having the kid. That's not really fair to the company, but it's the rational economic choice.

cnity 5y ago
I feel warm to this idea, so I mean this question genuinely: if the paternal leave is funded by taxes, does it still match salary? If so, it will not be easy to convince poorer voters to vote for a policy that gives more money to the rich than the poor. If not, the incentives will still be imbalanced but in another way: lower paid employees will be more likely to accept the leave than higher paid employees.
- dudul 5y ago
  Can it be similar to unemployment? A percentage of the salary with a potential cap? Higher paid employees pay more taxes (just like they pay more for unemployment insurance) so it shouldn't be a problem.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  Where I live we get 4 months of paternal leave, and you're fully paid by social security during that time, at your normal salary. In the end the social contributions are proportional to your salary when you work, it's not unfair to have this particular benefit match your salary too.
  - cnity 5y ago
    That's a good point, I didn't think about the contributions.
- habosa 5y ago
  I'd assume the tax would be proportional to salary, sort of like social security. Some conservative napkin math: let's say that people have about a 30-year working career and have on average 2 children. Let's say we want to give them 3 months off per child. That's 6 months of paid time off in a 30-year (360 month) working career or 1.66% of their career off. So taxes in that range would cover it. And actually people only need to get their after-tax salary in payments, which is smaller. And companies would probably be happy to pay into this because they no longer have the burden of paying the full PTO, it's amortized across the economy. Beyond taxes, the main contribution of the companies here would be that they need to hold the job for you while you're out and continue to provide non-salary benefits such as healthcare. My math is probably off but I think it's in the right ballpark!

by habosa 5y ago

cnity 5y ago

I feel warm to this idea, so I mean this question genuinely: if the paternal leave is funded by taxes, does it still match salary? If so, it will not be easy to convince poorer voters to vote for a policy that gives more money to the rich than the poor. If not, the incentives will still be imbalanced but in another way: lower paid employees will be more likely to accept the leave than higher paid employees.

dudul 5y ago
Can it be similar to unemployment? A percentage of the salary with a potential cap? Higher paid employees pay more taxes (just like they pay more for unemployment insurance) so it shouldn't be a problem.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
Where I live we get 4 months of paternal leave, and you're fully paid by social security during that time, at your normal salary. In the end the social contributions are proportional to your salary when you work, it's not unfair to have this particular benefit match your salary too.
- cnity 5y ago
  That's a good point, I didn't think about the contributions.
habosa 5y ago
I'd assume the tax would be proportional to salary, sort of like social security. Some conservative napkin math: let's say that people have about a 30-year working career and have on average 2 children. Let's say we want to give them 3 months off per child. That's 6 months of paid time off in a 30-year (360 month) working career or 1.66% of their career off. So taxes in that range would cover it. And actually people only need to get their after-tax salary in payments, which is smaller. And companies would probably be happy to pay into this because they no longer have the burden of paying the full PTO, it's amortized across the economy. Beyond taxes, the main contribution of the companies here would be that they need to hold the job for you while you're out and continue to provide non-salary benefits such as healthcare. My math is probably off but I think it's in the right ballpark!