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Gender is a made-up concept with no sensible definition. The defining quality is sex. Having children is simply more burdensome and time-consuming for women, n

by tomp 5y ago

Gender is a made-up concept with no sensible definition. The defining quality is sex. Having children is simply more burdensome and time-consuming for women, no way around it (except artificial wombs in the distant future). I've advocated "child-bonus" before (i.e. paying companies extra when their employees get pregnant and on maternity leave), but I doubt that idea will gain any popularity. When even in the most equal societies the sex-interest gap (which is upstream of career choice) not only persists, but increases, that is additional heavy evidence that it's influenced mainly by biology, not by society.

ethbr0 5y ago
I've always thought it's insane that many developed countries' governments fret about their birth rates, then do absolutely nothing to incentivize having children from an individual's career perspective. It's not unreasonable social calculus to just say "We the government are going to pay you your potential lost earnings, if you decide to have a child." In the US at least, existing policy is mostly targeted at family units (via tax credits), which doesn't really bear on an individual's opportunity cost and decision to have children or not.
- darebak 5y ago
  AFAIK Hungary is trying something like that, I am not sure about the specifics but I think that for every child you have the government lowers your income tax and after your third child you don't pay any income tax. There are some other measures too, all of them were implemented relatively recently, let's say 2015 although I am not sure. As for the results, I guess it's still early to tell: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=HU&start=2000 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...
gjulianm 5y ago
> Having children is simply more burdensome and time-consuming for women, no way around it Pregnancy is 9 months, the children live for many years. For that second part, men and women could take responsibilities in an equal way (save for breastfeeding, but pumps exists), but usually the burden tends to fall on the women and that hurts careers more than pregnancy.
- craigie 5y ago
  In most places maternity leave is a lot longer than paternity leave so that's society influence.

by tomp 5y ago

ethbr0 5y ago

I've always thought it's insane that many developed countries' governments fret about their birth rates, then do absolutely nothing to incentivize having children from an individual's career perspective. It's not unreasonable social calculus to just say "We the government are going to pay you your potential lost earnings, if you decide to have a child." In the US at least, existing policy is mostly targeted at family units (via tax credits), which doesn't really bear on an individual's opportunity cost and decision to have children or not.

darebak 5y ago
AFAIK Hungary is trying something like that, I am not sure about the specifics but I think that for every child you have the government lowers your income tax and after your third child you don't pay any income tax. There are some other measures too, all of them were implemented relatively recently, let's say 2015 although I am not sure. As for the results, I guess it's still early to tell: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=HU&start=2000 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...

gjulianm 5y ago

> Having children is simply more burdensome and time-consuming for women, no way around it Pregnancy is 9 months, the children live for many years. For that second part, men and women could take responsibilities in an equal way (save for breastfeeding, but pumps exists), but usually the burden tends to fall on the women and that hurts careers more than pregnancy.

craigie 5y ago
In most places maternity leave is a lot longer than paternity leave so that's society influence.