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It shouldn’t. If you have 10 Years experience and take a year off to birth and raise a child, you should be able to come back and be paid similarly to a man or
by smugma 5y ago
It shouldn’t. If you have 10
Years experience and take a year off to birth and raise a child, you should be able to come back and be paid similarly to a man or woman who has 10 years of experience and not be penalized 2-3 years of experience for it.
People may have different commitments to work after having kids, and compensation can and should be adjusted based on that.
I definitely work much less than I did pre-kids, but my compensation has gone up significantly. I think this is typical for men. My wife also works less for more money post kids (but she had kids while doing postdoctoral work, and then moved to private industry).
- nightski 5y agoI'd take this a step further and argue that any gaps in employment history should not be looked on nearly as negatively as they are today. It really invokes a wage slave mentality.
- freedomben 5y agoAt least in tech, I think we're mostly there already, particularly if the applicant has some explanation for it (and even then it's getting rarer to ask about it). With the large amount of no-child/one-child families and waiting until mid 30s to start having kids, it's very common for people to have enough income/savings that they can take a few months or even a couple years off to travel the world or try a startup, or something else.
- BlargMcLarg 5y agoI'd be careful stating this, as the reason why this isn't happening might be as simple as "there aren't enough experienced tech workers to make such a demand". Considering tech recruitment is still willing to do many other things which aren't empirically proven or even have empirical evidence suggesting against the act, there is room for skepticism here.
- missedthecue 5y agoFollowing this to its logical conclusion, would you say that devs with 10 years experience shouldn't earn any more than someone fresh from college?
- account42 5y agoThat conclusion does not follow logically at all.
- missedthecue 5y agoif accumulated experience should not contribute to pay, it follows perfectly.
- nightski 5y agoThat's not really what I said at all. How does allowing someone to have gaps in their employment history mean accumulated experience should not contribute to pay? In my opinion general "years of experience" is not a large contributing factor in regards to pay anyways. Relevant experience on specific projects using certain technologies and expertise in specific domains matters a lot more. It's supply and demand.
- missedthecue 5y agoSomeone has 10 years of continuous experience, knowledge, and work. They makes $100k. Someone else is the same age, graduated the same year, from the same school, but took two years off of work and therefore has 8 years of experience. They make $80k, which is less than their colleague. See the difference?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- legostormtroopr 5y ago> If you have 10 Years experience and take a year off to birth and raise a child, you should be able to come back and be paid similarly to a man or woman who has 10 years of experience and not be penalized 2-3 years of experience for it. Except that 1 year off has put them 1 year behind their peers who now have 11 years experience. Their skills have also decayed by a year, and they missed 1 year of developments in the industry. People shouldn’t be penalised for having kids, but likewise it should be recognised that having children does impact career trajectory in a non-discriminatory way.