5 ms·

Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. That's like saying why are incomes in Mexico so much lower than the US? Just do what the US does.

by bko 5y ago

Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. That's like saying why are incomes in Mexico so much lower than the US? Just do what the US does. In fact, Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40. I'd rather be a parent in the US than Greece or Mexico. Policies don't exist in a vacuum.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
speedgoose 5y ago
Why US can't have better parental leave policies when Greece, France, or Mexico can?
- bko 5y ago
  > Nevertheless, the participation of Greek women in the labour market continues to be 8-10 percent below the average of E.U. countries Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in the US (14%). Policies don't exist in a vacuum. Everything has trade offs. Until you accept that you'll never have a productive honest conversation. [0] https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p257.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p257.html
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    I don't understand the logic. Because Greece has some issues with its women employment rate, USA can't do anything about parental leaves? You even suggested in your initial post simple solutions for this problem, that work in other countries.
    - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
      This is from the same poster who, when confronted with data refuting his position, said "I'm not interested in studies that show something", which says quite a lot about the value of discussion here.
    - geodel 5y ago
      It's a damn clear logic to me. --Employers show reluctance to hire women of certain age--. It is same in India with govt's liberal policy of maternity leave, overall employment rate of Women has gone down. Resources do not come out of thin air. Something has to happen for it to change: 1) Govt provide income to family engaged in child raising activity. -Need high level of tax base and political support to actually fund it. 2) Govt open free and quality child daycare. - Again need political support and competent administration to do it. 3) Force private employers to pay. - Only business survive are with high income and revenues. Not gonna work with conservative politics. 4) Go back to old joint family structures where grandparents stay in same home with couples and provide "free" child care. - Needless to say absolutely not gonna work. Its antithesis of progressive vision of society. 5) Keep giving examples of other countries. Useless until one look at whole societal structure and find why many other things work in USA but not in those countries.
      - 5560675260 5y ago
        > Its antithesis of progressive vision of society. Could you expand a bit on this? My impression was that it just became a cultural norm in places that could afford this, driven by the basic need to cultivate own "spaces".
  - ajuc 5y ago
    According to [1] USA is 86th in the world according to unemployment. Most of the countries with lower unemployment than USA have paid paternity leave. Please stop cherry-picking, you're not fooling anyone. 120 counties in the world have paid maternity leave, often about a year or more of it. That includes countries with higher standards of living than USA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemploym...
    - bko 5y ago
      Everything is on the margin. All else being equal, providing a large benefit that's most likely to be exercised by one type of worker will discourage employers from hiring that type of worker. This shouldn't be complicated or controversial. It's basic incentives.
      - germinalphrase 5y ago
        Perhaps you are artificially limiting the scope of what incentives/disincentives exist with regard to parental leave such that your ideological model is maintained. There certainly seems to be a significant amount of evidence to suggest your fears are unfounded.
  - yardie 5y ago
    If you're going to cherry pick irrelevant metrics you can also say that higher gun deaths are related to lower unemployment. Just shoot your way into a job promotion.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in the US (14%). This implies that Greece's unemployment is a result of their parental leave policies, which is, of course, not true at all. Greece is used as an example particularly because of its bad economy; If a country that's doing as badly as Greece can do it, why can't the US? If you want examples of "successful" economies doing it, there are plenty of those too.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  You might not want to use Greece or Mexico as a good example. One is literally a 3rd world country and the other had to be bailed out by the EU. So, no they actually can't monetarily support those policies.
jcranmer 5y ago
Sweden has 48 weeks. Would you rather be a parent in the US than Sweden?
- jseban 5y ago
  A rational answer to that would be yes for anyone who is making an above average salary, and no only if you are below average. That's how all tax funded benefits work.
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    Why's that? You're still not getting those benefits with an above average salary.
    - jseban 5y ago
      You would be better off financing your own "benefits" if you're above average. And everyone would theoretically also be better off without the benefits, because of how much money you would save in all the bureaucracy needed. It's only the people who are not able to take responsibility for having their own money, that are the ones that are really better off. Any tax financed benefits for everyone like this, pensions, maternal leave, unemployment, health care etc are really just an institution forcibly saving money for you, on your behalf. So that you don't have to be responsible for saving money yourself, and don't have to take the risk of over spending or mismanaging. And for that service you will pay the price of salaries for all the people working in these institutions.
      - baq 5y ago
        > It's only the people who are not able to take responsibility for having their own money, that are the ones that are really better off. some people don't have the liberty of that privilege. being poor is very expensive.
      - cloudfifty 5y ago
        But this doesn't seem to be happening. Very well off people in the US still have very very modest vacations and parental leave, very expensive day care etc. What's even the upside if you're just trading universal tax to paying a for-profit corp monthly instead? Skipping the queue through wealth instead of need?
ajuc 5y ago
> Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40. And Sweden has 480 days. Poland 1 year. Switzerland 20 weeks. Ireland 26 weeks. UK 52 weeks. Canada 50 weeks. Norway 12 months. Denmark 52 weeks. France 16 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers. I can go on. There's 120 such countries in the world. BTW that leave is on top of 20-30 days of paid vacations each year and unlimited paid health leave in most of these countries. Notice that most of these also have free healthcare and free or cheap university education. Which is also "impossible" apparently :) Also notice that some of these countries have higher or similar GDP per capita to USA. Also ALL of the countries I mentioned have lower gender salary gap than USA. And most of them have higher women workforce participation. Somehow the argument used against paid parental leave turns out to work in favor of it :) If you choose to ignore almost all developed countries other than USA (that have 20 weeks or more of paid paternity leave ) and cherry-pick Mexico as your counterexample - you should at least be aware what you're doing. You are searching for excuses to keep your ideological delusions going. This isn't complicated, it works everywhere it's been tried, it's a simple change, the costs are marginal compared to benefits, even countries with GDP per capita one tenth of USA can afford it. You sound exactly like this: "8-hour work week can't be done, the argument that other countries do it means nothing - in USA it won't work. I prefer to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week in USA than to work 8 hours in Wenezuela after all".
- m_ke 5y ago
  It's always amusing to hear Americans act like basic social programs are impossible to implement as if they're living in a vacuum. I usually have to show them these charts: https://mobile.twitter.com/michalwols/status/1454894191486685184 https://mobile.twitter.com/michalwols/status/145489419148668... or a comparison of cost of education/healthcare and ask them to explain why America is the only country that can't do it.
- tomp 5y ago
  > Also notice that some of these countries have higher or similar GDP per capita to USA. In the US, households have 10% more money than the second closest competitor (Luxembourg), and 20% more money than next closest (Germany & Switzerland). I think that's a much better comparison than GDP (which isn't necessarily connected with employment), and shows how these tradeoffs work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
baq 5y ago
the US also has significantly (in a statistical meaning of the word) lower average life expectancy than peer countries despite having by far the largest health care related expenses per capita. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/#item-life-expectancy-september-2021-update-chart-3 https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif... > Just do what the US does. thanks, but no thanks.
freeflight 5y ago
> Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. It very much is part of the answer as it gives successful examples and as such proof how it's very much realistic to achieve, if effort was actually put into it. Which is a much more constructive PoV than acting like even American problems are so exceptional that all of them need equally exceptional and unique solutions that no other country before could have figured out. > Policies don't exist in a vacuum. Indeed, that's why between Greece, Mexico and the US I would easily chose Greece, which has nearly half of the infant mortality rate of the US [0]. [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT

by bko 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

speedgoose 5y ago

Why US can't have better parental leave policies when Greece, France, or Mexico can?

bko 5y ago
> Nevertheless, the participation of Greek women in the labour market continues to be 8-10 percent below the average of E.U. countries Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in the US (14%). Policies don't exist in a vacuum. Everything has trade offs. Until you accept that you'll never have a productive honest conversation. [0] https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p257.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p257.html
- speedgoose 5y ago
  I don't understand the logic. Because Greece has some issues with its women employment rate, USA can't do anything about parental leaves? You even suggested in your initial post simple solutions for this problem, that work in other countries.
  - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
    This is from the same poster who, when confronted with data refuting his position, said "I'm not interested in studies that show something", which says quite a lot about the value of discussion here.
  - geodel 5y ago
    It's a damn clear logic to me. --Employers show reluctance to hire women of certain age--. It is same in India with govt's liberal policy of maternity leave, overall employment rate of Women has gone down. Resources do not come out of thin air. Something has to happen for it to change: 1) Govt provide income to family engaged in child raising activity. -Need high level of tax base and political support to actually fund it. 2) Govt open free and quality child daycare. - Again need political support and competent administration to do it. 3) Force private employers to pay. - Only business survive are with high income and revenues. Not gonna work with conservative politics. 4) Go back to old joint family structures where grandparents stay in same home with couples and provide "free" child care. - Needless to say absolutely not gonna work. Its antithesis of progressive vision of society. 5) Keep giving examples of other countries. Useless until one look at whole societal structure and find why many other things work in USA but not in those countries.
    - 5560675260 5y ago
      > Its antithesis of progressive vision of society. Could you expand a bit on this? My impression was that it just became a cultural norm in places that could afford this, driven by the basic need to cultivate own "spaces".
- ajuc 5y ago
  According to [1] USA is 86th in the world according to unemployment. Most of the countries with lower unemployment than USA have paid paternity leave. Please stop cherry-picking, you're not fooling anyone. 120 counties in the world have paid maternity leave, often about a year or more of it. That includes countries with higher standards of living than USA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemploym...
  - bko 5y ago
    Everything is on the margin. All else being equal, providing a large benefit that's most likely to be exercised by one type of worker will discourage employers from hiring that type of worker. This shouldn't be complicated or controversial. It's basic incentives.
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      Perhaps you are artificially limiting the scope of what incentives/disincentives exist with regard to parental leave such that your ideological model is maintained. There certainly seems to be a significant amount of evidence to suggest your fears are unfounded.
- yardie 5y ago
  If you're going to cherry pick irrelevant metrics you can also say that higher gun deaths are related to lower unemployment. Just shoot your way into a job promotion.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in the US (14%). This implies that Greece's unemployment is a result of their parental leave policies, which is, of course, not true at all. Greece is used as an example particularly because of its bad economy; If a country that's doing as badly as Greece can do it, why can't the US? If you want examples of "successful" economies doing it, there are plenty of those too.
CountDrewku 5y ago
You might not want to use Greece or Mexico as a good example. One is literally a 3rd world country and the other had to be bailed out by the EU. So, no they actually can't monetarily support those policies.

jcranmer 5y ago

Sweden has 48 weeks. Would you rather be a parent in the US than Sweden?

jseban 5y ago
A rational answer to that would be yes for anyone who is making an above average salary, and no only if you are below average. That's how all tax funded benefits work.
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  Why's that? You're still not getting those benefits with an above average salary.
  - jseban 5y ago
    You would be better off financing your own "benefits" if you're above average. And everyone would theoretically also be better off without the benefits, because of how much money you would save in all the bureaucracy needed. It's only the people who are not able to take responsibility for having their own money, that are the ones that are really better off. Any tax financed benefits for everyone like this, pensions, maternal leave, unemployment, health care etc are really just an institution forcibly saving money for you, on your behalf. So that you don't have to be responsible for saving money yourself, and don't have to take the risk of over spending or mismanaging. And for that service you will pay the price of salaries for all the people working in these institutions.
    - baq 5y ago
      > It's only the people who are not able to take responsibility for having their own money, that are the ones that are really better off. some people don't have the liberty of that privilege. being poor is very expensive.
    - cloudfifty 5y ago
      But this doesn't seem to be happening. Very well off people in the US still have very very modest vacations and parental leave, very expensive day care etc. What's even the upside if you're just trading universal tax to paying a for-profit corp monthly instead? Skipping the queue through wealth instead of need?

ajuc 5y ago

> Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40. And Sweden has 480 days. Poland 1 year. Switzerland 20 weeks. Ireland 26 weeks. UK 52 weeks. Canada 50 weeks. Norway 12 months. Denmark 52 weeks. France 16 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers. I can go on. There's 120 such countries in the world. BTW that leave is on top of 20-30 days of paid vacations each year and unlimited paid health leave in most of these countries. Notice that most of these also have free healthcare and free or cheap university education. Which is also "impossible" apparently :) Also notice that some of these countries have higher or similar GDP per capita to USA. Also ALL of the countries I mentioned have lower gender salary gap than USA. And most of them have higher women workforce participation. Somehow the argument used against paid parental leave turns out to work in favor of it :) If you choose to ignore almost all developed countries other than USA (that have 20 weeks or more of paid paternity leave ) and cherry-pick Mexico as your counterexample - you should at least be aware what you're doing. You are searching for excuses to keep your ideological delusions going. This isn't complicated, it works everywhere it's been tried, it's a simple change, the costs are marginal compared to benefits, even countries with GDP per capita one tenth of USA can afford it. You sound exactly like this: "8-hour work week can't be done, the argument that other countries do it means nothing - in USA it won't work. I prefer to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week in USA than to work 8 hours in Wenezuela after all".

m_ke 5y ago
It's always amusing to hear Americans act like basic social programs are impossible to implement as if they're living in a vacuum. I usually have to show them these charts: https://mobile.twitter.com/michalwols/status/1454894191486685184 https://mobile.twitter.com/michalwols/status/145489419148668... or a comparison of cost of education/healthcare and ask them to explain why America is the only country that can't do it.
tomp 5y ago
> Also notice that some of these countries have higher or similar GDP per capita to USA. In the US, households have 10% more money than the second closest competitor (Luxembourg), and 20% more money than next closest (Germany & Switzerland). I think that's a much better comparison than GDP (which isn't necessarily connected with employment), and shows how these tradeoffs work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

baq 5y ago

the US also has significantly (in a statistical meaning of the word) lower average life expectancy than peer countries despite having by far the largest health care related expenses per capita. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/#item-life-expectancy-september-2021-update-chart-3 https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif... > Just do what the US does. thanks, but no thanks.

freeflight 5y ago

> Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. It very much is part of the answer as it gives successful examples and as such proof how it's very much realistic to achieve, if effort was actually put into it. Which is a much more constructive PoV than acting like even American problems are so exceptional that all of them need equally exceptional and unique solutions that no other country before could have figured out. > Policies don't exist in a vacuum. Indeed, that's why between Greece, Mexico and the US I would easily chose Greece, which has nearly half of the infant mortality rate of the US [0]. [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT