8 ms·

Paid maternity leave world maps for mothers and fathers

27 points by br0ke 13y ago

gilgoomesh 13y ago
Out of date for Australia. Australia has had 18 weeks paid parental leave since 2011: http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/parental-leave-pay http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink...
- furyg3 13y ago
  Which leaves: The United States†, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Liberia. † It appears as though CA, NJ, WA (DC?) have some paid compensation for all workers. Still, it seems pretty paltry compared with nearly everywhere else in the world.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rmc 13y ago
The patriarchy says men can't take care of babies. Us feminists think men can take care of babies and should have the same leave / similar entitlement as women.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- belorn 13y ago
  except in separations.
- aroch 13y ago
  Really? Because it seems that feminists say men can't take care of children, particularly by so convincing the US judicial system that only women can care for children that it takes extraordinary circumstances for a father to get custody. Modern, vocal feminists have, by and large, become severely anti-men in many of their policies. From convincing the world that all men are rapists and manipulating definitions of rape to induce male perpetrators. To the lovely Tumble feministas /SJW who spread vile, hate-filled messages against men. To a court system and public that's been convinced by the feminist political machine that women need to be protected and there's no way they could possibly rape someone or lie about being raped. There's no such thing as the patriarchy in modern culture. Feminists like using that word as a scapegoat and explanation for everything they do and don't like.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    M-W defines "patriarchy" as: "a family, group, or government controlled by a man or a group of men." 90% of Congressmen, 95% of Fortune 500 CEO's, and 90% of Forbes 400 are men. The government and the most important corporations that people work for, along with the richest people in the country, are overwhelmingly controlled by men. That's the literal definition of patriarchy.
    - aroch 13y ago
      I give 0-shits about how M-W defines that word. Why? Because they until very recently defined rape as an act committed by a man against a women and now have added wiggle-words to their definition to make it seem like a less pejorative against men. Their "examples of rape" involves or intimates a male assessor.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - rayiner 13y ago
        It's absolutely hilarious for you to ascribe this definition to feminism, because it actually derives from the common law definition of rape, which is hundreds of years old and predates modern feminism by more than quite a bit. The common law definition is an anachronism in more ways than one--it excludes rape against men in the same breath as it excludes spousal rape against women. The most deeply ironic thing about your post is that it was feminists who led the effort to reform rape laws in the 1970s-1990s, which included making them gender neutral in addition to applying within marriages and eliminating degrees that made rape by acquaintances less severe than rape by strangers.
        aroch 13y ago
        Modern feminists also pushed for the FBI definition of rape which is forced penetration but construed in such a way that it really only covers insertion of a penis. They also pushed for useless laws like rape shields which prevents the accused from addressing their accuser in the press while allowing the accusers to speak freely. They also pushed the "Dear Colleague" letter that's lowered the standard to preponderance in disciplinary hearings that strongly favors female accusers. The modern definition of rape is no longer the one espoused by second wave feminists, which I happen to agree with. Rape shouldn't be a gendered crime, but thirdwave and radical feminists don't seem to think so.
- qwerta 13y ago
  BS. Divorced fathers and feminists understand each other well.
rayiner 13y ago
Paid leave is nice, but I'm much more concerned about daycare. I think it's a travesty as well as a remnant of patriarchy that you can deduct a steakhouse lunch as the "cost of doing business" but not deduct daycare as a cost of being able to work. I'm in envy of countries with functioning public daycare systems.
- massysett 13y ago
  In the USA there is a child care tax credit; to be eligible, the child care expenses must have enabled the taxpayer to work or to look for work. http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc602.html http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc602.html
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The child care tax credit covers about 2 months of daycare in a major metro area.
    - VLM 13y ago
      $400/week? Sounds a bit steep. Ten years ago I was paying $100/week in a "top 20 metropolitan area" and that was for a rather high end service in the 2nd wealthiest suburb in the region. Much like college tuition increases, a government tax break merely means the suppliers will all increase prices to adsorb the new supply of money. Its basic supply and demand, you have a supply of more money, so we'll demand it. A govt tax break has no impact on the standard of living of the population, its a give away for the industry it applies to. Also DCRA is a complicated tax mess where its incompatible with some other social engineering child tax credit scheme, causing all manner of annoyance and confusion. That's all I remember of that detail, at least 5 to 10 years ago at the fed level you could put pre-tax income into a DCRA OR not pay income tax on some small subset of childcare expenses but obviously you couldn't double dip and apply both credits to untax your untaxed income although the paperwork made it easy enough to accidentally try.
      - rayiner 13y ago
RyanMcGreal 13y ago
Among the list of things about the United States that are incomprehensible to me (a Canadian), the absence of paid maternal (let alone parental) leave ranks pretty close to the top.
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  Most worker protections in the US apply to companies with more than some fixed number (I think it's 50) of employees. http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html About 1/6 of the working population is at employers with less than 20 employees, and so wouldn't be covered anyway. Another 1/6 is at employers with 20 to 99 employees, and many of them would also not be covered. Why should the social safety net exclude 20% of the population?
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  I find it incomprehensible why paid maternal leave would be mandatory. Why should companies (in particular the ones who hire women) be forced to pay for the life choices of their employees? And why maternity specifically, as opposed to all sorts of other life choices?
  - marquis 13y ago
    So women have the opportunity to give birth and raise children in a safe, welcoming society, so you have a healthy population and grandkids around to pay for elderly social services? Is 'paying it forward' anathema?
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
      Why should companies who hire a larger number of women bear a disproportionate portion of these costs?
      - sentenza 13y ago
        You are aware that it's not the company that pays the wage compensation during the maternity leave? At least here in Germany, you get 60% of your salary (up to an upper limit) for 12 months (14 if both parents take part of the leave) _from the state_. These schemes are usually designed in such a way that they are either cost-neutral or beneficial to companies that employ women.
tbrownaw 13y ago
Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Especially when it only applies to sufficiently large employers?
- bryanlarsen 13y ago
  The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Companies exist to exploit this resource; are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it?
  - tbrownaw 13y ago
    The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Yes. Companies exist to exploit this resource; No. Companies exist to alleviate transaction costs. Companies also exist to exploit economies of scale. Your use of "exploit" is perjorative; companies don't exist to hold an advantage over the workforce, they exist to provide increased opportunities for the workforce. are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it? Mandatory paid leave (for any reason) is not maintaining the workforce. The workforce does not need to be maintained. It is insulting and offensive to claim that the workforce is incapable of maintaining itself. Maintaining the skilled workforce would be helping people keep their skills up. That is, sending them to educational seminars, providing tuition assistance, providing time to experiment with interesting new things. This is nice to have, but not necessary. All that is necessary is that people have sufficient non-work hours to have time to learn on their own. People are naturally curious, and most remain at least somewhat curious even after being sent thru formal schooling. Employees do not (or should not) belong to specific employers. Employers are not (should not be) responsible for maintaining the education and well-being of their (current) employees. They are (should be) only responsible for not hindering said employees from looking after their own education and well-being. Any further responsibility (the "social safety net"; ensuring that personal disasters or sustained bad luck don't get people stuck at the bottom of the pile) belongs to society as a whole (either government or voluntary charities).
mcenedella 13y ago
The correct title for the map is “Countries where employers are fined or threatened with jail time for not providing maternity leave”. Despite what our ‘enlightened’ friends the world over think about the dark, backwards, USA, it is not, in fact, illegal to provide paid maternity leave in the US. This map, and the comments in this thread, support mandatory, government-backed maternity leave in the amount and style which the government believes is appropriate. Honest differences in preferences or opinions are subject to government punishment. In the USA, we are skeptical of the benefits of the government making it a law to do mothering the way the government wants you to. We ask “Why is it noble to force people to forgo higher wages and other benefits for an in-kind contribution to a particular type of maternal care?” The argument against government-mandated benefits has been made elsewhere in great detail. Facts, evidence, history, and common sense indicate that forcing people to consume their wages the way the government wants, in the the style the government wants, decreases the success of the overall community. That’s why every people who has ever had the chance to overthrow communism, has. And that’s why the children of all these states in Europe find that jobs are very difficult to get, and many of them, particularly the entrepreneurial ones, come to America. Fewer rules imposed on people lead to greater growth, which leads to greater health, happiness, wealth, and longevity. Further, there is something immoral about threatening to throw people in jail, or fine them, if they don’t do exactly what the government says on something as basic as raising your children. To those who say that we should go ahead and follow “The Man” and be happy for these gifts, you have to realize that we are paying for the benefits, not the government, so forcing us to do it the way “they” want it, in a one-size-fits-all manner is not really a benefit to anybody. You may say that it is only fair, or right, or just, that there be 3 months, or 12 months, or 24 months of paid maternity leave. 24/7/365 child care is bliss for many mothers — perhaps most. But for others, they may prefer to spend those dollars on better daycare, or weeklong breaks interspersed with work, or a 4-day week, or they may be just fine with working a full week and spending a more focused, quality time with their child on their days off. Demanding that one size fits all, that the government has figured out the correct style of maternal care once and for all time, (when, it should be noted, every government legislature in the world is still majority male), and that those who disagree should be fined or thrown in jail, is not, in fact, a kind or compassionate policy, but a kind of abuse. Incorrectly titled maps may be great for click bait, but they shouldn’t pass for deep analysis here on HackerNews.
joliv 13y ago
I'm sure Somalia has a great time enforcing their maternity leave laws.

27 points by br0ke 13y ago

Out of date for Australia. Australia has had 18 weeks paid parental leave since 2011: http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/parental-leave-pay http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink...

furyg3 13y ago
Which leaves: The United States†, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Liberia. † It appears as though CA, NJ, WA (DC?) have some paid compensation for all workers. Still, it seems pretty paltry compared with nearly everywhere else in the world.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rmc 13y ago

The patriarchy says men can't take care of babies. Us feminists think men can take care of babies and should have the same leave / similar entitlement as women.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
belorn 13y ago
except in separations.
aroch 13y ago
Really? Because it seems that feminists say men can't take care of children, particularly by so convincing the US judicial system that only women can care for children that it takes extraordinary circumstances for a father to get custody. Modern, vocal feminists have, by and large, become severely anti-men in many of their policies. From convincing the world that all men are rapists and manipulating definitions of rape to induce male perpetrators. To the lovely Tumble feministas /SJW who spread vile, hate-filled messages against men. To a court system and public that's been convinced by the feminist political machine that women need to be protected and there's no way they could possibly rape someone or lie about being raped. There's no such thing as the patriarchy in modern culture. Feminists like using that word as a scapegoat and explanation for everything they do and don't like.
- rayiner 13y ago
  M-W defines "patriarchy" as: "a family, group, or government controlled by a man or a group of men." 90% of Congressmen, 95% of Fortune 500 CEO's, and 90% of Forbes 400 are men. The government and the most important corporations that people work for, along with the richest people in the country, are overwhelmingly controlled by men. That's the literal definition of patriarchy.
  - aroch 13y ago
    I give 0-shits about how M-W defines that word. Why? Because they until very recently defined rape as an act committed by a man against a women and now have added wiggle-words to their definition to make it seem like a less pejorative against men. Their "examples of rape" involves or intimates a male assessor.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - rayiner 13y ago
      It's absolutely hilarious for you to ascribe this definition to feminism, because it actually derives from the common law definition of rape, which is hundreds of years old and predates modern feminism by more than quite a bit. The common law definition is an anachronism in more ways than one--it excludes rape against men in the same breath as it excludes spousal rape against women. The most deeply ironic thing about your post is that it was feminists who led the effort to reform rape laws in the 1970s-1990s, which included making them gender neutral in addition to applying within marriages and eliminating degrees that made rape by acquaintances less severe than rape by strangers.
      - aroch 13y ago
        Modern feminists also pushed for the FBI definition of rape which is forced penetration but construed in such a way that it really only covers insertion of a penis. They also pushed for useless laws like rape shields which prevents the accused from addressing their accuser in the press while allowing the accusers to speak freely. They also pushed the "Dear Colleague" letter that's lowered the standard to preponderance in disciplinary hearings that strongly favors female accusers. The modern definition of rape is no longer the one espoused by second wave feminists, which I happen to agree with. Rape shouldn't be a gendered crime, but thirdwave and radical feminists don't seem to think so.
qwerta 13y ago
BS. Divorced fathers and feminists understand each other well.

rayiner 13y ago

Paid leave is nice, but I'm much more concerned about daycare. I think it's a travesty as well as a remnant of patriarchy that you can deduct a steakhouse lunch as the "cost of doing business" but not deduct daycare as a cost of being able to work. I'm in envy of countries with functioning public daycare systems.

massysett 13y ago
In the USA there is a child care tax credit; to be eligible, the child care expenses must have enabled the taxpayer to work or to look for work. http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc602.html http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc602.html
- rayiner 13y ago
  The child care tax credit covers about 2 months of daycare in a major metro area.
  - VLM 13y ago
    $400/week? Sounds a bit steep. Ten years ago I was paying $100/week in a "top 20 metropolitan area" and that was for a rather high end service in the 2nd wealthiest suburb in the region. Much like college tuition increases, a government tax break merely means the suppliers will all increase prices to adsorb the new supply of money. Its basic supply and demand, you have a supply of more money, so we'll demand it. A govt tax break has no impact on the standard of living of the population, its a give away for the industry it applies to. Also DCRA is a complicated tax mess where its incompatible with some other social engineering child tax credit scheme, causing all manner of annoyance and confusion. That's all I remember of that detail, at least 5 to 10 years ago at the fed level you could put pre-tax income into a DCRA OR not pay income tax on some small subset of childcare expenses but obviously you couldn't double dip and apply both credits to untax your untaxed income although the paperwork made it easy enough to accidentally try.
    - rayiner 13y ago

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

Among the list of things about the United States that are incomprehensible to me (a Canadian), the absence of paid maternal (let alone parental) leave ranks pretty close to the top.

tbrownaw 13y ago
Most worker protections in the US apply to companies with more than some fixed number (I think it's 50) of employees. http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html About 1/6 of the working population is at employers with less than 20 employees, and so wouldn't be covered anyway. Another 1/6 is at employers with 20 to 99 employees, and many of them would also not be covered. Why should the social safety net exclude 20% of the population?
yummyfajitas 13y ago
I find it incomprehensible why paid maternal leave would be mandatory. Why should companies (in particular the ones who hire women) be forced to pay for the life choices of their employees? And why maternity specifically, as opposed to all sorts of other life choices?
- marquis 13y ago
  So women have the opportunity to give birth and raise children in a safe, welcoming society, so you have a healthy population and grandkids around to pay for elderly social services? Is 'paying it forward' anathema?
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Why should companies who hire a larger number of women bear a disproportionate portion of these costs?
    - sentenza 13y ago
      You are aware that it's not the company that pays the wage compensation during the maternity leave? At least here in Germany, you get 60% of your salary (up to an upper limit) for 12 months (14 if both parents take part of the leave) _from the state_. These schemes are usually designed in such a way that they are either cost-neutral or beneficial to companies that employ women.

tbrownaw 13y ago

Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Especially when it only applies to sufficiently large employers?

bryanlarsen 13y ago
The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Companies exist to exploit this resource; are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it?
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Yes. Companies exist to exploit this resource; No. Companies exist to alleviate transaction costs. Companies also exist to exploit economies of scale. Your use of "exploit" is perjorative; companies don't exist to hold an advantage over the workforce, they exist to provide increased opportunities for the workforce. are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it? Mandatory paid leave (for any reason) is not maintaining the workforce. The workforce does not need to be maintained. It is insulting and offensive to claim that the workforce is incapable of maintaining itself. Maintaining the skilled workforce would be helping people keep their skills up. That is, sending them to educational seminars, providing tuition assistance, providing time to experiment with interesting new things. This is nice to have, but not necessary. All that is necessary is that people have sufficient non-work hours to have time to learn on their own. People are naturally curious, and most remain at least somewhat curious even after being sent thru formal schooling. Employees do not (or should not) belong to specific employers. Employers are not (should not be) responsible for maintaining the education and well-being of their (current) employees. They are (should be) only responsible for not hindering said employees from looking after their own education and well-being. Any further responsibility (the "social safety net"; ensuring that personal disasters or sustained bad luck don't get people stuck at the bottom of the pile) belongs to society as a whole (either government or voluntary charities).

mcenedella 13y ago

The correct title for the map is “Countries where employers are fined or threatened with jail time for not providing maternity leave”. Despite what our ‘enlightened’ friends the world over think about the dark, backwards, USA, it is not, in fact, illegal to provide paid maternity leave in the US. This map, and the comments in this thread, support mandatory, government-backed maternity leave in the amount and style which the government believes is appropriate. Honest differences in preferences or opinions are subject to government punishment. In the USA, we are skeptical of the benefits of the government making it a law to do mothering the way the government wants you to. We ask “Why is it noble to force people to forgo higher wages and other benefits for an in-kind contribution to a particular type of maternal care?” The argument against government-mandated benefits has been made elsewhere in great detail. Facts, evidence, history, and common sense indicate that forcing people to consume their wages the way the government wants, in the the style the government wants, decreases the success of the overall community. That’s why every people who has ever had the chance to overthrow communism, has. And that’s why the children of all these states in Europe find that jobs are very difficult to get, and many of them, particularly the entrepreneurial ones, come to America. Fewer rules imposed on people lead to greater growth, which leads to greater health, happiness, wealth, and longevity. Further, there is something immoral about threatening to throw people in jail, or fine them, if they don’t do exactly what the government says on something as basic as raising your children. To those who say that we should go ahead and follow “The Man” and be happy for these gifts, you have to realize that we are paying for the benefits, not the government, so forcing us to do it the way “they” want it, in a one-size-fits-all manner is not really a benefit to anybody. You may say that it is only fair, or right, or just, that there be 3 months, or 12 months, or 24 months of paid maternity leave. 24/7/365 child care is bliss for many mothers — perhaps most. But for others, they may prefer to spend those dollars on better daycare, or weeklong breaks interspersed with work, or a 4-day week, or they may be just fine with working a full week and spending a more focused, quality time with their child on their days off. Demanding that one size fits all, that the government has figured out the correct style of maternal care once and for all time, (when, it should be noted, every government legislature in the world is still majority male), and that those who disagree should be fined or thrown in jail, is not, in fact, a kind or compassionate policy, but a kind of abuse. Incorrectly titled maps may be great for click bait, but they shouldn’t pass for deep analysis here on HackerNews.

joliv 13y ago

I'm sure Somalia has a great time enforcing their maternity leave laws.