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Equal paternity leave is a thing but it doesn't change the fact that women get pregnant and men don't which is why most employers still discriminate against hir

Equal paternity leave is a thing but it doesn't change the fact that women get pregnant and men don't which is why most employers still discriminate against hiring women and why the salary gap is still a thing. Edit: Don't get why I'm downvoted for saying the truth on how many employers think when hiring. Is stating the hard truth bad or something? I don't like it myself but that's how our society works.

CogitoCogito 5y ago
Are men taking the time as much as women? So basically the difference is the 1-2 months (or whatever the average is) women take off before giving birth? Maybe the solution is to add that amount of time to male paternity leave?
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Maybe the solution is to add that amount of time to male paternity leave? That sounds good, but who will pay for the extra costs of men being out of the workforce longer?
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    The same people who pay for the current maternity/paternity leave?
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      If it was that simple, it would have been done already but just saying "everyone should have nice things" is easy until you get to implementing it and ask who's picking up the tab that is hard, as taxes are high already and budgets are tight in most of Europe. There is no free lunch. Like I explained previously, all generous benefits given by the government have hidden costs to the employers and end up biting some workers back through reduced job mobility as employers optimize by hiring employees who will burden them the least. It's unfortunate that it's like this, but companies will always act in their best interest.
      - CogitoCogito 5y ago
        Your original post asked how to make it so that women's career doesn't take a hit. The answer is obvious: make it so that the likelihood of men and women going on parental leave is roughly the same. It's totally doable. It would require some changes, but it's totally doable. If your concern is cost specifically, we could always _remove_ parental leave from women and allocate it to men instead. So this could even be done on a financial cost-neutral basis. But yes there is no free lunch. Either more money needs to be allocated to parental leave, or the current parental leave needs to be shifted over towards men at the cost of women. Somewhere something has got to give. But it's not some sort of mystical problem. We know how to solve it. Whether we choose to do so is another question.
        ChuckNorris89 5y ago
        Some European countries "solved" this by having the child leave as a shared pool which the parents can split between themselves as they wish but it still doesn't solve the fact that women have a greater hit on their careers and income due to the baby-making capabilities of their bodies.
        CogitoCogito 5y ago
        That's not "solved". They would have actually solved it if parents _couldn't_ split it as they wish. It should be allocated 50-50 (or at least reasonably close). If a mom or dad doesn't want to take their time off, they should lose that portion. This would balance the incentives and actually have a chance of evening things out over time.
        ixacto 5y ago
        The following is just an idea, but it would be prudent to consider all possible solutions to this problem before making widespread changes to labor law in this country [USA]… Why do we want to strive for an equal amount of parental leave so much? Seems like an obsession borne out of a political ideology rather than an increase in productivity. Could it be that the reality is that women have a lot more stress under pregnancy and childbirth cuz they are actually the ones giving birth? This would lead to a lot more time out of the workforce and probably reduced productivity whilst caring for an infant the first couple years. What if we just removed all employment protections/protected groups/parental leave and replaced it with a universal basic income? This would solve our leave-inequality problem as you get the same UBI payment everywhere and the FAANG can’t use parental leave as a selling point anymore.

CogitoCogito 5y ago

Are men taking the time as much as women? So basically the difference is the 1-2 months (or whatever the average is) women take off before giving birth? Maybe the solution is to add that amount of time to male paternity leave?

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>Maybe the solution is to add that amount of time to male paternity leave? That sounds good, but who will pay for the extra costs of men being out of the workforce longer?
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  The same people who pay for the current maternity/paternity leave?
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    If it was that simple, it would have been done already but just saying "everyone should have nice things" is easy until you get to implementing it and ask who's picking up the tab that is hard, as taxes are high already and budgets are tight in most of Europe. There is no free lunch. Like I explained previously, all generous benefits given by the government have hidden costs to the employers and end up biting some workers back through reduced job mobility as employers optimize by hiring employees who will burden them the least. It's unfortunate that it's like this, but companies will always act in their best interest.
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      Your original post asked how to make it so that women's career doesn't take a hit. The answer is obvious: make it so that the likelihood of men and women going on parental leave is roughly the same. It's totally doable. It would require some changes, but it's totally doable. If your concern is cost specifically, we could always _remove_ parental leave from women and allocate it to men instead. So this could even be done on a financial cost-neutral basis. But yes there is no free lunch. Either more money needs to be allocated to parental leave, or the current parental leave needs to be shifted over towards men at the cost of women. Somewhere something has got to give. But it's not some sort of mystical problem. We know how to solve it. Whether we choose to do so is another question.
      - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
        Some European countries "solved" this by having the child leave as a shared pool which the parents can split between themselves as they wish but it still doesn't solve the fact that women have a greater hit on their careers and income due to the baby-making capabilities of their bodies.
        CogitoCogito 5y ago
        That's not "solved". They would have actually solved it if parents _couldn't_ split it as they wish. It should be allocated 50-50 (or at least reasonably close). If a mom or dad doesn't want to take their time off, they should lose that portion. This would balance the incentives and actually have a chance of evening things out over time.
      - ixacto 5y ago
        The following is just an idea, but it would be prudent to consider all possible solutions to this problem before making widespread changes to labor law in this country [USA]… Why do we want to strive for an equal amount of parental leave so much? Seems like an obsession borne out of a political ideology rather than an increase in productivity. Could it be that the reality is that women have a lot more stress under pregnancy and childbirth cuz they are actually the ones giving birth? This would lead to a lot more time out of the workforce and probably reduced productivity whilst caring for an infant the first couple years. What if we just removed all employment protections/protected groups/parental leave and replaced it with a universal basic income? This would solve our leave-inequality problem as you get the same UBI payment everywhere and the FAANG can’t use parental leave as a selling point anymore.