
Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap - andygcook
https://www.wsj.com/articles/want-equality-make-new-dads-stay-home-1538151219
======
curtis
We're thinking about the problem all wrong. Clearly the way to close the wage
gap is to get women to stop having kids.

Of course I'm not serious, but then I personally don't care if there is a wage
gap as long as it is not being caused by workplace discrimination against
women.

If instead it's the case that the wage gap is caused by women
(disproportionately to men) making an _informed_ choice to de-prioritize work
in order to prioritize childcare, then I am totally alright with that.

Maybe the impact of the wage gap is too big even if it's caused by women
making informed choices. We could choose to offset it directly, for example by
subsidizing children -- kind of like a basic income just for kids. By doing it
that way we could make the system largely agnostic about whether it's a father
or a mother deciding to prioritize childcare over work in any particular case.

~~~
amb23
In a perfectly rational market, neither mother or father would
disproportionately decide to make one choice or another to prioritize or de-
prioritize work at the expense or benefit of raising children. Equal numbers
of men would be making that same choice as women do. But that's not the case
today.

Despite all the hemming and hawing over the wage gap issue, it's clear where
the wage gap comes from: childcare, childcare, childcare. Even if women, in
general, are making an informed decision to de-prioritize work, it's not a
rational decision at the societal level if men don't also make that decision
in equal numbers. No one faults a woman for making that decision for
themselves and their family. But on a societal level, we're not going to see
wage equality until men are given an equal chance to make these same decisions
in a way that's not dictated by age-old stereotypes of masculinity and
breadwinners.

I think mandatory paternity leave would help here. I also think on-site
childcare, or subsidized childcare given to employees as a benefit like
healthcare, could benefit both mothers and fathers and help influence more
women to stay in the workforce. The costs of subsidizing childcare for a
30-something manager are probably lower than the costs of finding and training
someone new to replace them if they're forced to leave the workforce to care
for a newborn. There are a number of interventions the private sector can take
that can be integrated around pregnancy, birth, and raising newborns that can
make work a bit more rational for both mothers and fathers and help retain
employees.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> _it 's clear where the wage gap comes from: childcare, childcare,
> childcare._

I've decided recently, just now actually: I don't buy this.

Why would an employer discount a woman's value just because she may, at some
point, take time off to care for a child?

Men also leave jobs. Shouldn't employers discount men's value because they
may, at some point, leave?

~~~
hkai
I think the person you're replying to meant that men and women earn exactly
the same salary, but childcare means that a person doesn't work or works small
jobs part-time, meaning that their income goes down.

Employers do not pay women less just because they can have children one day.
In fact, young women earn more, on average, than young men.

------
brighteyes
It would have been a more interesting article had it also went into the
downsides of this approach.

One specific concern is that mandatory paternity leave may discourage men from
becoming fathers, further decreasing the birth rate which is already quite low
in many advanced economies.

Another is that if taking paternity leave impacts men's careers, then in many
cases both parents will suffer such an impact, further disadvantaging couples
from having children.

Overall, it's an interesting idea, and definitely worth discussing.

~~~
gumby
> One specific concern is that mandatory paternity leave may discourage men
> from becoming fathers...

> Another is that if taking paternity leave impacts men's careers, then in
> many cases both parents will suffer such an impact...

As the article states: how are these factors different for men than for women?

~~~
smallnamespace
But it disproportionately affects those who choose to have children. This
doesn't eliminate an imbalance, it would simply shift some of the burden
around.

~~~
karmajunkie
And that's a bad thing because...?

The he whole point is to eliminate one of the primary causes of gender
inequality in the workplace. Spreading the burden of parenting is exactly the
right thing to do.

------
oconnore
This seems really heavy handed. In my experience what’s valuable for men is
flexibility, not some set number of weeks you have 100% off. I (as a father)
went back to work at Fivetran 4 weeks after my son was born, but at 20 hours a
week. That allowed me to help my partner during the initial recovery, but also
be the primary parent (with daycare) from ~4-9 months when she returned to
traveling for work in consulting.

Not doing any work 2 months in would have seemed wasteful, and being expected
to go 100% at 7 months in would have been inconvenient for both of us.

Not everyone has access to this, but I feel really grateful that I did. It
seems like the best arrangement possible, at least for us.

~~~
Smushman
I think the primary point of the article is that this flexible planning is not
functioning as an equalizer in the workplace (Title: Want Equality? Make New
Dads Stay Home...) and that it could, and should. To turn it into more direct
phrasing; a woman has to take a significant chunk of time off during a
pregnancy by virtue of the condition, and this has a net effect on her career.

When a woman takes off for pregnancy it is known up front it is for several
months, and she is also indisposed during that time (can't answer questions or
take quick phone calls, because she is not able to perform at peak levels
while convalescing). So an employer accounts for the loss of that duty in
different ways such as shifting responsibilities. And many of these ways
become a limit to career success. Imagine she is closing a large sales deal
but has to leave before close due to pregnancy - so she is no longer the clear
performer in that sale, as it is closed by someone else. This reduces her
effectiveness on paper (becomes a detractor) due to gender differences
(becomes unequal).

A man has been given flexibility to give and take that same time in a way that
permits some juggling of work and family supporting efforts - i.e your example
case. You worked part time, she could really not do that in her case. This
lets you stay active in your role (little effect on your responsibilities)
when she could not.

~~~
oconnore
My point basically boils down to this: making parental leave about something
other than enabling parents to recover and take care of their kids is really
kludgey, and probably would have made our experience of raising our son more
difficult unless it was really, really long (like one year long).

The wage gap is a problem, but there is nothing that says we have to solve it
(or that it can be solved) using this particular knob.

~~~
Smushman
I am trying to decide if I like the updated title the submitter gave to this
article.

As submitted and on article: Want Equality? Make New Dads Stay Home

Updated: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

------
treyfitty
I've discussed this in the past. My company started offering 5 month paternity
leave at the end of 2016. For a credit card company, this was huge. There had
to have been a catch. I took the chance anyway, and got laid off. This isn't
uncommon at the company either. I've heard of 3 females so far who also shared
the same fate. All of thought it was illegal, but our individual lawyers
pretty much summed it up in one sentence: "Sure, it may be... but you have to
prove it was solely due to taking leave, and it's not worth it."

I think it wasn't worth it because of an arbitration clause or whatever, but I
wasn't going to risk my time, money, and energy required when I just had a
baby.

~~~
adammunich
Calling out the company by name is the first step to effecting change. Nothing
scares a brand like bad PR.

~~~
treyfitty
And nothing scares me more than them sending their goons (lawyers). I'm still
looking for a job 8 months later, so I don't want to deal with that.

~~~
magnetic
What's your skill set?

~~~
treyfitty
Analytics + Data Science.

------
JackC
I took 12 weeks of paternity leave after my wife went back to work, and
definitely recommend it if you can swing it. Partly just that spending time
with a kid small enough to nap inside your hoodie is worth doing -- but
honestly I'm not cut out to be a stay-at-home parent and that's not why I'm a
fan of paternity leave. More that it helped so much with setting us up for
parenting together.

One reason is that it's hard to understand just how much work it is if you
haven't done it on your own for long stretches, and it helps for both partners
to know that both partners know how hard it is and have taken a turn at it.

Another is the self-reinforcing competence thing -- if one partner always
packs for going out, say, then the other partner is likely to take longer and
do a worse job when they try packing, so it's easier for everyone if they
don't, and you end up thinking only one person is good at parenting. To some
extent it's fine to specialize, but having to do everything during the day on
my own for a few months made it really clear that both of us can be good at
any given thing if need be.

One thing I was surprised by (but shouldn't have been) is just how much wealth
you're showing off by taking paternity leave. Telling people you're taking 12
weeks of paternity leave in America is basically telling them you have plenty
of money and a job you can afford to walk away from, which pretty much crosses
the line into boasting about things you shouldn't boast about. I ended up
playing it down more than I expected, which kind of sucks, since it's an
awesome thing that more folks should be able to do.

------
paulus_magnus2
Let's stop discriminating against people who have a family or other things to
do except work. Start by enforcing 40 hour work week and make overtime paid
150%.

Employers prefer frugal workaholics with no obligations but these individuals
impose externality on "normal people". We're rich enough, no need working
above 8h/day.

I'd go all the way and make it illegal to provide work without compensation
(internships, 80h work weeks etc). And I'd to try limit oversupply of labour
by further limiting standard workweek below 40h.

~~~
pimmen
Those benefits have been in Sweden for decades.

------
damagednoob
I'm in favour of a set amount of parental leave that can be shared between
spouses in whatever ratio _they_ choose. I don't understand how depriving
families of choices is going to be a good thing.

Example: You and your husband would like to breastfeed your baby for the first
6 months but you are unable to express? Too bad, your husband _has_ to take
paternity leave and you will have to go back to work.

From my experience, there is a connection between mother and child from birth
that is nurtured and strengthened through breastfeeding. I would vehemently
oppose the state enforcing any interruption in my child's wellbeing as we see
fit as parents.

~~~
lovich
The state already imposes interruptions in what parents see as their childs
well being. Requiring vaccinations to attend school, preventing parents from
including children in dangerous religious events like snake handling, stopping
underage marriages even when the parent thinks it's in the child best economic
interest, etc.

Unless you are against state intervention in cases like these, then you are
already accepting that the state can interfere. At that point the question is
a matter of degree

~~~
damagednoob
> Unless you are against state intervention in cases like these, then you are
> already accepting that the state can interfere.

Okay, fair enough. I will vehemently oppose any state interruption _that goes
against medical recommendations_. You will not believe the string of NHS
nurses and caregivers who tried to ensure that we breastfed our child.

~~~
lovich
Yeah that makes sense. I dont see how giving father's the same parental leave
as women is an issue there though. Companies aren't going to give extra leave
to women instead of giving it to men

------
alkonaut
Don’t enforce it. Just start with making it tax funded, not employer funded.
Next make part of the parental leave shared between parents be allocated to
the father. Now if they don’t use it they will lose a benefit they already
paid taxes for. The last and most important step is to keep this system in
place for a generation or more, after which any parent not doing a fair chunk
of the parental leave will be considered a bad parent by their peers.

~~~
michaelt

      Just start with making it tax funded, not employer funded.
    

I guess it'd be good for small businesses, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about
paying $40,000,000 a year to Larry Ellison while he was on parental leave.

~~~
zimablue
Just cap it, if you make more than 100k you don't really need it anyway.

~~~
alkonaut
Yes. Cap for where I am (Sweden) is around the pay of a teacher, and the pay
during the leave is 80% of that. This means I as a software dev is paid around
50% of my salary during the leave. Some employers fill this in up to e.g 80 or
90% as a benefit.

------
chriskanan
In academia, some studies have shown than mandatory paternity leave may not
close gaps in productivity:

 _The authors compared promotion rates before and after these gender-neutral
parental policies were adopted, relative to trends in comparable institutions
that did not alter their policies, while also accounting for an array of
influences, like where each economist was trained. They found that men who
took parental leave used the extra year to publish their research, amassing
impressive publication records. But there was no parallel rise in the output
of female economists._

From: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/business/tenure-
extension...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/business/tenure-extension-
policies-that-put-women-at-a-disadvantage.html)

------
rukittenme
I'm surprised this has had such a good reception. Hobbling men in the name of
equality is just bizarre. It's mixture of "Hansel and Gretel" and "Harrison
Bergeron". Instead of weights just fatten them up with sweets.

I didn't push a human being out from between my legs. Because of that I'm
capable of working. I would like to be _useful_ to my family. Working is one
way I can do that.

If I work while my wife is on leave and the gender pay gap is worsened. _I don
't care._ If my wife stays home to recover from her ordeal and the gender wage
gap is worsened. _She doesn 't care._

The gender wage gap is so abstract and cynical at this point. It is beyond
meaning. People aren't allow to live their lives the way they see fit because
of some stupid number.

Shocking I know but there is no such thing as the "average woman". If her wage
is different from the "average man" it has no bearing on the earnings of a
_specific woman_ with _specific goals and habits_.

~~~
lovich
It's not leave to just fuck off and do nothing. Taking care of a baby is an
incredibly demanding task which is why most human societies we're built around
having multiple generations of family, or other members of your tribe, helping
with childcare. Foisting all of that onto a mother without any assistance is a
relatively new thing in human history. If you took parental leave, most people
would expect to be an actual parent to the child.

Beyond all of that, this change isn't about what the right level of child care
is. It's about the fact that managers and companies discount women workers of
child bearing age to a degree that they do not for men, because if a couple is
having a child the woman is going to have to take some amount of time off. The
suggestion from this article would be like adding an interface of IParent over
the male and female classes, and having the employers make
hiring/firing/promotion decisions based off of the interface rather than the
concrete class. If you don't do this the two groups of people, men and women,
will be treated differently based on the circumstances of their birth. As a
culture we've made a value judgement that this sort of discrimination is a bad
thing, so why would we not mitigate it?

~~~
rukittenme
> so why would we not mitigate it?

For two reasons. One simple and one complex.

The first and simple reason is that you're applying rules _categorically_. If
I live in a multi-generational household I don't need to stay home and care
for the children to the same degree as a more "typical" family. Compelling me
to stay home reduces my earnings with no added benefit to my wife or family.
In fact you've hindered my family's ability to progress economically. You've
hurt a _specific_ woman to help the _average_ woman. As I've illustrated
above, the average woman _does not exist_. Mandatory leave helps a
_statistical category_ but not women.

The second more complex reason has more to do with economics.

We already know that women who have never married earn more than men of the
same category (the gap is not large or worth considering).

> As far back as 1971, single women in their thirties who had worked
> continuously since high school earned slightly more than men of the same
> description. As far back as 1969, academic women who had never married
> earned more than academic men who had never married.[1]

From this we can gleam two things. 1: Women are not being "treated differently
based on the circumstances of their birth" (at least in a way that
disadvantages them in terms of salary). 2: _Mothers_ are being treated
differently based on their behaviors.

I hope the first statement is self-explanatory but the second might need
additional context.

How does an employer know if a women will give birth in the next five years?
The obvious answer is "they don't". So if that's the case how do businesses
know to pay mothers less than never-married women? Because they're not paying
mothers less. They're paying never-married women more. People with more
continuous years of service are more able to capitalize on opportunities in
the workplace and are never in a position to be rendered redundant by a
replacement.

If you compel men to take paternal leave, you open them up to all the
detriments that mothers face. You take a family who's member has already taken
an earnings hit and _doubled down_.

The gender wage gap (as it exists in the United States in 2018) is not a
concern. Efforts to fix the gap will result in lower wages for fathers not
higher wages for women (the terms "fathers" and "women" were chosen with
significant care).

tl;dr: Fixing the pay gap between never-married women and mothers will solve
the gender pay gap as a corollary.

1\. [https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/pay-gap-studies-
dispr...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/pay-gap-studies-disprove-
myth-sexism-responsible/?target=author&tid=900925)

~~~
lovich
My understanding is that this idea would imply paid mandatory leave. It would
be bad for the individuals if it was mandatory unpaid leave.

>From this we can gleam two things. 1: Women are not being "treated
differently based on the circumstances of their birth" (at least in a way that
disadvantages them in terms of salary). 2: Mothers are being treated
differently based on their behaviors.

I hope the first statement is self-explanatory but the second might need
additional context.

Women are being treated differently here because when a man and woman decide
to have a child, the woman is guaranteed to have to take leave and that is
known and accounted for before hand. Mandatory parental leave makes that cost
be the same regardless of gender. It is disingenuous to say women aren't being
treated differently and only mothers are, when men don't get the same
treatment despite being fathers

>If you compel men to take paternal leave, you open them up to all the
detriments that mothers face

I view this more as spreading the burden of child rearing across society which
I agree would increase the burden on men and companies. It is a completely
necessary part of being biological life and continuing our society, but as we
currently stand we just demand that a subset of society takes care of it on
their own dime. If paternal leave was mandatory for children we would be
treating men and women equally, because women have no choice but taking leave
when they have a child, and we would be promotion better care for the children
which is in our own best interests. We are k type breeders, not r type, and we
have shown a better return on investment by giving better care to less
children.

>The gender wage gap (as it exists in the United States in 2018) is not a
concern.

That is an opinion, not a fact.

~~~
rukittenme
> My understanding is that this idea would imply paid mandatory leave. It
> would be bad for the individuals if it was mandatory unpaid leave.

That was understood in my post. Long periods of paid leave inhibits earnings
growth and leaves you vulnerable to replacement regardless of gender.

This is what was meant by "Fixing the pay gap between never-married women and
mothers will solve the gender pay gap as a corollary."

> Women are being treated differently here because when a man and woman decide
> to have a child, the woman is guaranteed to have to take leave.

Yes there is a guaranteed recovery period. And, yes, depending on how long you
are absent this leave will effect earnings. But...

> men don't get the same treatment despite being fathers

Men who take long paternity leave suffer the same income stagnation as women.

"Still, most men can’t afford to take more than a few days off after the birth
of a new child. Especially because parental leave can depress long-term
earnings [...] regardless of gender."[1]

Compelling paternity leave does not increase the earnings of mothers. It
decreases the earnings of fathers. Which may very well shrink the gender wage
gap but it makes families poorer and less able to provide for themselves and
their children.

To be trite, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

> I view this more as spreading the burden

This, I believe, is our fundamental disagreement. You think a burden is being
spread more thinly whereas I think you've created additional burdens. In my
opinion, and I believe the data backs me up, this strategy reduces fathers and
does nothing to help mothers (economically).

1\. [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/the-
ris...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/the-risky-
business-of-paternity-leave/282688/)

------
defen
How exactly would this be enforced? If a man doesn't disclose that his partner
is pregnant, is he going to be fired? I don't see how it could be legal to do
so. How is a partner's / spouse's medical condition any business of an
employer?

~~~
zimablue
It gets better, what if you're not with the mother. What if it was a one night
stand, or you donated sperm to her as a single parent. What if you're not with
her, she told you she was on the pill and it wasn't true. What if you're in a
non binary relationship (2 fathers?). What if you adopt a young child.

~~~
lagadu
Just look across the pond, many countries solved that over here and we managed
to survive.

~~~
zimablue
I can't find a source on which countries enforce fathers taking leave, I
assume at least one scandinavian country, which others? I don't think it's
common at all, could be wrong.

------
pmiller2
I don’t think this is legal. Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis
of sex, so, if women are not also forced to take such leave, how can men be?

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Ok. So make sure women are forced to take some time off as well.

------
colllectorof
_> What’s needed now is action. Why not start with mandatory paternity leave?_

This is called politician's syllogism.

1\. We must do something 2\. This is something 3\. Therefore, we must do this.

It's a logical fallacy.

------
zimablue
Can we stop linking and upvoting these article on HN, I've seen several in the
last few months.

I don't see a clear link to hacker culture, if anything it's less relevant to
developers as we often have some form of flexible working already.

The link I can see is that it's part of the gender culture war that has
somehow become focussed on SV.

~~~
gumby
> I don't see a clear link to hacker culture

It's good advice for how to run my company.

~~~
zimablue
But it's not about that, it's about a proposed law. Anything to do with how to
run companies isn't hacker culture, we don't spam posts about the best
offshore tax arrangements and the advantages of different board structures.
Company stuff is mostly to do with startups and this practise is both less
relevant to and less favoured by startups.

~~~
lovich
It's a proposed change to how to run a company, it's not someone's rant about
how someone didn't call them xer and how that person is a Nazi.

Your opposition to even seeing this post because it includes gender seems like
more of a culture war artifact than the post itself

~~~
zimablue
As I said, we generally don't post company minutae unless there's a link to
tech or startups. It's not opposition to seeing the post, it's opposition to
the general trend of putting gender culture war articles otherwise
disconnected to hacker news on the forum because gender activists chose to
make SV a battleground.

It's not culture war to be bored of the culture war.

~~~
lovich
This board posts things constantly that don't have a link to tech. The only
requirement is that it would be interesting to hackers. If this article got
upvoted, then it's obviously interesting to the board.

This isn't a gender war article either as far as I can see

------
p2t2p
I like how left response is forcing people at the point of a gun when people’s
behaviour doesn’t fit into the ideology. If only I’ve seen it somewhere... ah,
in the country I was born - Soviet Union.

------
barrkel
We western economies have to figure this out or we'll gradually depopulate, or
live under fascist governments, or worse.

Much of the gains of two-income parents goes into house prices to be closer to
good schools - i.e. zero sum competition, while company incentives are to
encourage people not to have children, or defer children until too late to
maintain population, and essentially stopping the next generation of employees
from being born.

And then you mix migration driven by climate change into the mix, and it's
very easy for populist politicians to whip up narratives of being overrun, not
least because on a historical scale it's true (and of course it's always been
true, everywhere has always been in the state of being overrun, with ebbs and
flows).

The dynamics here aren't good and it's hard to see how they're going to change
any time soon, short of a crisis.

~~~
john_moscow
>And then you mix migration driven by climate change Do you seriously believe
the migration is driven by climate change, not by the difference in life
quality driven by political/cultural differences?

~~~
lukeschlather
Do you seriously believe that climate change isn't a factor? One need look no
further than the Maldives for an extreme example, but there are little
examples all over. Obviously people migrate for lots of different reasons, but
climate change is becoming a serious one for a lot of people.

~~~
john_moscow
I seriously think that differences between countries in factors like medical
care, corruption, education, religious freedom/etc outweigh the climate issues
by a huge margin. And climate-driven migration would normally mean moving to a
different climate, not trying to offset the ~1 degree Celcius change that is
observable as of today.

------
aghaghagh
“And the trees were all kept equal.. by hatchet, axe, and saw.”

------
pmiller2
[http://archive.is/g3gbd](http://archive.is/g3gbd)

------
vsviridov
Nothing like a little enforcement for the public good /s

~~~
contravariant
Eh, sometimes you need a little enforcement to escape the Nash equilibrium.
Not sure this is the best example though.

~~~
08-15
Just stop telling people that pure greed is the same thing as rationality.
Never forget, Nash was crazy, and he did not get a Nobel Prize.

Superrationality provides nicer solutions to classic problems like the
Prisoners Dilemma, but superrationality "is not mainstream". (Economists don't
get it.)

------
erokar
In Norway mother and father each have 15 weeks paid leave from work after
childbirth, e.i. 30 weeks total. If the father chooses not not use his paid
leave it cannot normally be transferred to the mother.

------
stcredzero
_Make_ men stay at home for paternity leave? I have a coworker fighting for
the _ability_ to stay at home for parental leave.

~~~
gumby
If you read the article you see why: men who take it are liable to face
consequences ("what, you are so unimportant that the company can do with out
you?") that clearly also affect women.

The article discusses that if you make it mandatory you get the company
culture to adapt that parental leave should not be a career-affecting thing.

~~~
orangecat
_The article discusses that if you make it mandatory you get the company
culture to adapt that parental leave should not be a career-affecting thing._

It will never not affect your career. Even if you work for a wonderfully
enlightened company that is happy to have you take six months off at full pay,
the people who are continuing to work in that time are going to be gaining
experience and increasing their skills, and will have a better shot at raises
and promotions.

------
beaner
If such discrimination exists (it probably does), this will just change the
bias to be against anyone who is part of a young, potentially child-bearing
couple.

It also seems utterly against my rights as a human, and unconstitutional.

------
matz1
Good, I guess as someone who have no plan to have kids, it makes me more
attractive to employer since they don't have to wory of paying me leave.

~~~
zimablue
Except that you have no way of proving that and it would be illegal for them
to ask. What it actually does is leave you do the work/pay taxes for your
colleagues reproduction holiday.

~~~
renjimen
"Reproduction holiday". I can only assume you have never spent time around
babies and small children. Holiday usually is the last word that springs to
mind.

~~~
lovich
The guy thinks the one month is a generous amount of time to give a woman to
recover from childbirth while taking of a baby at the same time. He seems
adamant that people only take time off to relax and there's zero benefit to
the child to having parents around. The arguments hes posting might hold more
sway if he based them on the reality of having a child at all

~~~
renjimen
Sounds like he just wants people to stop having kids at all. Like our society
wouldn't collapse within a generation if we didn't. Somehow it's an
individual's responsibility to maintain the future workforce and the rest of
society in no way benefits.

------
NietTim
Bullcrap, we have a "paternity leave gap" in the Netherlands AND a wage gap

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oh_sigh
How would you enforce men informing their company that they recently became a
father?

~~~
jonathankoren
Do you really think that new fathers aren't going to enroll their child in
health insurance, and take advantage of tax deductions?

~~~
chongli
That doesn't apply here in Canada. If I were a new father in the US, faced
with taking a massive pay cut for forced paternity leave, I'd pick up the
insurance for my child at retail.

Heck, in high pressure firms where anyone taking parental leave is inviting
career stagnation or termination (fully justified by having HR set up a paper
trail of unsatisfactory performance evaluations), you'd be downright crazy to
disclose the birth of your child.

~~~
jonathankoren
1) We're talking about paid leave.

2) Historically, no one bought insurance on the individual market. It's been
absurdly expensive. That was why the individual mandate under Obamacare is/was
important. It forced healthy people to buy insurance, and thus drive down the
price.

3) It's illegal discriminate based on parental status.

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gaius
There should be a system that every n years you get a 6-month paid sabbatical
that can be used for any purpose - studying, traveling, having a kid,
anything. Because consider two women, one who wants kids and one who doesn’t.
Why should woman 2 be disadvantaged? Isn’t that the exact opposite of
equality?

~~~
paulryanrogers
Doesn't this encourage terminating employees before that N year, unless they
are absolutely essential?

~~~
gaius
Well it’s already illegal to sack a woman immediately that she announces she’s
pregnant, so I guess this would come under the same thing. For both men and
women obv.

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fjsolwmv
Why do we want equality if it means pushing women away from the motherhood
they choose?

~~~
cimmanom
How would this push any woman away from the choice to be a mother?

And why should someone who wants to be a mother and a careerist have to accept
more career penalties than someone who wants to be a father and careerist?

And why should a woman who _doesn 't_ want children have to pay a penalty for
the choices of those who do?

~~~
jacquesm
> And why should a woman who doesn't want children have to pay a penalty for
> the choices of those who do?

For the same reason that men do. After all, society as a whole has decided for
some reason that children are a good thing, and that the cost of having them
should be born by all, even those without.

~~~
kgwgk
> After all, society as a whole has decided [...] that the cost of having
> [children] should be born by all, even those without.

Is this not a thread about how society has NOT yet decided such a thing?

~~~
jacquesm
In theory, yes, but in practice taxes tend to favor married couples and people
with children. So even if in the theoretical case you are right practically
speaking we all share the cost of having children.

~~~
zimablue
Sorry to be that guy but you're making a clear logical fallacy.

The argument is "should we subsidize children" and you're substituting "does
society want to subsidize children" and then for THAT you're substituting "do
we currently subsidize children".

You can only go from 1 to 2 by assuming something like tyranny of the
majority.

You can only go from 2 to 3 by assuming that the current system is exactly
what society would choose if they decided now. Which is obviously silly, given
a blank slate drug laws, marriage laws and tax breaks would all be different
for a few examples.

~~~
jacquesm
It is pretty safe to assume the tyranny of the majority in a democratic system
and it is a given that society chose what it did, if it did not it would have
changed.

'Given a blank slate' is so far from practice that it might as well be
fiction.

Utopia is not suddenly going to spring to life, if you want it there is only
one way to get there: get into politics, and good luck because the one word
you will learn very quickly once you've arrived there is 'compromise'.

~~~
zimablue
No, the tyranny of the majority is NOT the safe thing to assume in a
democratic system, or that that would be the right thing. Our systems are
build to insulate decision making from 51% splits.

But we're not arguing that we're about to do something from a blank slate, the
blank slate point is that just because society DOES something, doesn't mean
that it WANTs to do something, for the same reasons as above we don't decide
everything by referendum. The US numbers on single payer, medicaid for all,
drug laws and etc are miles away from the policy, your argument is like
looking at marijuana being illegal in most states a few years ago and using it
as evidence that they want it to be illegal.

~~~
jacquesm
You now have 22 posts in this thread (and counting), it seems you are very
much upset for having to pay for something that you do not feel that you
benefit from. But if you consider that you too are a product of the societies
that chose to support children and if you accept that once children are there
it helps to have them well nourished, healthy and smart then maybe you'll come
to the conclusion that your position is a pretty selfish one.

So when you write 'we' you can substitute 'I' and be closer to the truth, and
you don't need to drag in a whole pile of other stuff that is hypothetical
rather than real, why ignore the evidence in front of your eyes if you have
it?

Hypotheticals are great to argue about things for which we do not have data,
they suck at improving over reality when we do.

As or the tyranny of the majority not being the safe thing to assume in a
democratic system: the democratic system pretty much codifies the tyranny of
the majority, with a few exceptions about forming coalitions where some give-
and-take allows a small minority to score some points because they can be the
swing vote. But if you want to see the tyranny of the majority at work you
need to look no further than that US that you write about.

~~~
zimablue
Thanks for counting, if you'd read them you'd see that I've addressed your
points already and you aren't moving the debate on. To reiterate though,
supporting parents with a holiday is not the same as supporting children. My
dad taking time off doesn't make me healthy, well nourished or smart. Healthy
is healthcare, well nourished is money and only god can do smart. Immigration
is an alternative to domestic population growth. Domestic population growth or
even maintenance is not a positive or necessary outcome. There are alternative
approaches such as state-funded childcare or a generally different work
culture that would be more effective and fairer to help native-born children.

Hypotheticals aren't a silly debating tactic, they're an important component
of logic and reason, see the discovery of SR.

You clearly do not understand the concept of the tyranny of the majority, it's
not what this thread is about but since you asked...

The tyranny of the majority refers to the problem with voting systems where
anything that 51% agrees to, no matter how unjust, will pass, especially where
it harms the 10%. The reason why it does not apply to western democratic
systems: Major changes can require supermajorities. Constutions and rights
laws restrict the range of possible laws that can be passed. Citizens do not
vote directly on outcomes but elect a representative who is expected to
consider things more deeply on their behalf.

~~~
lovich
You are making a claim that I don't think has substance. You keep
susbstituting "holiday" for "leave". It is not a holiday to take care of a
baby, it's work. You are not going to be traveling to nice places or drinking
it up. You'll be sleep deprived and busy the whole time because babies are
incapable of taking care of themselves. You don't necessarily need to be
dealing with the baby 24/7 but someone needs to be available to react to the
babies needs or their suicidal tendencies of trying to touch/eat every
dangerous thing they see.

Our current setup puts this entirely on the wife and leaves the husband out of
it. Requiring paternal leave would both equalize make and female employees in
the eyes of employers _and_ allow for the parents to provide care to the child
without driving themselves into poor health or depression

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TheSpiceIsLife
I wrote this as a response to another comment, but I think it deserves a top
level comment.

> it's clear where the wage gap comes from: childcare, childcare, childcare.

I've decided recently, just now actually: I don't buy this.

Why would an employer discount a woman's value just because she may, at some
point, take time off to care for a child?

Men also leave jobs. Shouldn't employers discount men's value because they
may, at some point, leave?

~~~
tonyarkles
I’m answering your question, but not accepting the premise that childcare
_isn’t_ the major cause. Also, I’m coming at this from a Canadian perspective,
where we have paid maternity/paternity via the Employment Insurance system.
Despite it being available to both parents, anecdotally it is predominantly
use by the mother, although fathers do sometimes use it (and it’s shared, so
both can use it at the same time, eg when the child first come home). While
the employer doesn’t pay for the employee while they are on leave, the
employer is responsible for ensuring that their job is materially still there
when they come back. Someone can’t go on mat/pat leave and come back to
discover that they’re no longer a software manager but rather a janitor. In
the meantime, you have to find someone to replace them.

If you have two candidates, male and female, both are likely to have a number
of risk factors: they’ll leave, they’ll seek raises, etc. But, to address your
question, the woman also has some probability of having a child and taking mat
leave. All other things equal (probability of other risks), the woman will
likely have a higher overall risk, since she’s more likely to take mat leave.

That all being said, you’re not “allowed” to discriminate based on that. And,
as a man, I’ve never experienced sexual discrimination as far as salary goes.
But there’s an answer to your question as to why childcare could be the
primary factor.

