
With Paid Leave, Gates Foundation Says There Can Be Too Much of a Good Thing - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/upshot/paid-parental-leave-sweet-spot-six-months-gates.html
======
gpm
Something that's bugged me a long time about paid leave is the wrong group is
paying it.

The company paying means the company has a strong incentive to minimize how
much of it is used. They don't really receive any benefit for paying out
leave, it costs them a lot, both financially and in terms of work done. It
creates strong incentives to discriminate against people who might take the
leave in hiring process, to subtly retaliate against people who take leave,
and so on. (Yes, all those are illegal, but proving that a hiring manager is
doing so is next to impossible in all but the most egregious cases)

The whole "people might not come back" thing is just another instance of the
misaligned incentives. It's probably good for society if we have people
raising their own children, but it's bad for the employer who is currently
expected to pay leave.

We should take all of this entirely out of companies hands, run it through
taxes and the government (leaving the general payout scheme unchanged). It
would remove the worst of the misaligned incentives (now at least companies
aren't paying someone who isn't producing value for them) and should come at
minimal cost (you'd have to worry more about fraud, companies and people
conspiring to get more leave than they are entitled to).

~~~
_dark_matter_
I believe the company is less concerned with paying someone who isn't working
- which is basically just a fixed cost they can absorb - than they are about
the lost productivity while that person is gone. That may or may not be
replaceable, and often is not for shorter time spans (say, up to a couple of
months). Unfortunately, the government paying for leave wouldn't fixed that
misaligned incentive.

~~~
justtopost
If a company is not profiting from their work more than their absence, that
says little for the empolyee. Training is often estimated to be nearly a year
of pay in functional terms. I think you underestimate the impact of a lost
employee.

~~~
manigandham
Not everything a worker does provides immense leverage like software
development. Many times it is 1:1 with hours worked.

------
manfredo
The downside of long paid leave, apparently, is that women are more likely to
become full-time parents rather than re-enter the workforce. Is it fair to say
that this makes long paid leave a bad thing? It seems wrong for me to consider
a woman's life choices bad one way or another (whether they choose to re-enter
the workforce or not). An organization is cutting benefits to try socially
engineer a certain demographic outcome. I'm not sure if that action is
something to be commended.

~~~
rayiner
Paying parents to take leave is a form of social engineering to begin with.
Once you're already engaged in social engineering, it's important to consider
the impacts that alternative social engineering policies will have.

"Life choices," moreover, don't happen in isolation. They happen within a
broader social context. My wife and I basically have the same job--we're
attorneys of similar seniority at corporate law firms. Over the years, she has
faced so many more headwinds related to parenting than me. People stop my wife
on the street to remark about how our 5 month old is dressed (warmly enough,
etc.). I could stroll him down the street in nothing but a diaper in 40 degree
weather and people would either offer to help or tell me how I'm such a good
dad for not immediately ditching my family when he was born. (I'm joking but
only a little bit.)

(One of the neat things about "Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is that it shows how it
was socially acceptable for rich people in the 1950s-1960s to completely
delegate parenting. In 1965, 70% of kids were not breastfed even in the
hospital. It's much more socially acceptable for women to work these days, but
in some respects the expectations for "mothering" are much higher. Decisions
about whether to return to work are made in the context of these differential
social expectations.)

~~~
manfredo
I agree that any form of paid parental leave is in part a form of social
engineering. But I clearly see the benefit of it: to encourage people to have
children. This is beneficial because developed countries face the demographic
challenge of an ageing population.

But the question I am asking is, between a couple taking a year of leave and
one (usually the woman) decides to become a full time parent vs. a couple
takes 6 months leave to have a kid and both stay in the workforce. Why is the
latter better than the former?

My first thought was that it would improve gender imbalance, but the article
states that Gates Foundation employees are two thirds women. So that's out the
window.

So the only other justifications require subscription to the belief that a
woman who chooses to become a full time parent isn't as good a thing one that
stays in the workforce. Sure, the latter improves a country's labor pool. But
there's a lot of intangible benefits of having a full time parent. It seems
kind of manipulative to cut workers' benefits and try and justify it because
it makes more women keep working, when the evidence seems to be that many
would have chosen differently if the benefits weren't cut.

~~~
rayiner
As you acknowledge, it's usually the woman that takes the longer leave. Part
of that is free choice. But part of it is also that women have lower
opportunity costs to taking leave, and higher opportunity costs to staying in
the workforce. A couple might realize that a woman will face additional
headwinds to achieving seniority in her employment, since as you go up the
ladder management tends to be disproportionately men. Moreover, a women will
also face more headwinds for doing less mothering in order to continue in her
career. Longer parental leave amplifies the effect of that pre-existing
differential treatment, which is a downside to be accounted for.

~~~
manfredo
> Moreover, a women will also face more headwinds for doing less mothering in
> order to continue in her career.

I'm not sure how cutting parental leave eliminates pr reduced these headwinds.
It seems to me that it's deliberately putting more financial pressure on women
to tolerate those headwinds. Not eliminating those headwinds. Women's choice
is strictly less with 6 months of paid leave as compared to 1 year. Women have
the choice to take 6 months of leave instead of the full year (the article
mentions that they use 77% on average).

It still seems like this is trying to justify limiting women's choices and
benefits, because it makes more of them work.

~~~
rayiner
It reduces this headwinds in the long term. Girls raised by working moms are
more likely to have careers, earn more money, and hold supervisory positions:
[https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/kids-benefit-from-having-a-
workin...](https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/kids-benefit-from-having-a-working-mom).
That, in turn, reduces gender inequality for the next generation.

~~~
manfredo
> Girls raised by working moms are more likely to have careers, earn more
> money, and hold supervisory positions.

Note that "reduced headwinds" isn't one of these. Countries with high rates of
mothers in the workforce don't necessarily have more flexible gender roles.
Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have the highest rates of working mothers, but
have some of the strongest workplace segregation.

It's also a largely circular justification: more working mothers are better
because their daughters are more likely to become working mothers. Again, this
only functions as a justification for those that subscribe to the belief that
working mothers are categorically better than non-working mothers.

My original point, from which we have diverged significantly by now, is that
this article and many in this thread seem to believe that working mothers are
categorically better than full time mothers. This seems to have led us to
respond positively to measures that increase the former, even when those
measures are coercive (in this case, cutting benefits and putting more
financial burden on mothers).

------
cm2012
Average total tenure at companies is around 2.8 years for people between 25-34
([https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/tenure.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi7ourz7YngAhXwUt8KHWRtCzgQFjADegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw15P5oks9e6CjAJqrih6vsV&cshid=1548451107850)).

If you have 1 year off for parental leave, and probably months before and
after to hand off work and take it back up, that would be almost half the job
tenure on parental leave efforts.

That's rough for the company and the employee.

~~~
adventured
Paid parental leave should accrue over time. That solves the issue in a way
that is reasonably fair to the employee and business.

An employee with no interest in having children should also accrue parental
leave, which can be cashed in in some manner. That keeps the system from being
unfairly biased against people with no interest in having children.

The only alternative is to socialize the matter fully. Take the average salary
from the prior N years and the government then pays for the parental leave out
of taxes. That would also require all workers to pay into the system. One
issue would be how to make it fair for people that never draw against that
system. It would also take about five minutes before the first stories started
showing up about how people earning $300,000 per year were being paid large
sums by the government for parental leave. I suppose there could be an attempt
to scale it based on pay as a percentage of income.

Entitlement systems are always fraught with edge cases though. Both of my
parents died before they were able to draw social security, despite paying
into the system for a combined ~70-80 years. That money was stolen from them
by a flawed system.

~~~
martin_bech
thats simply stupid. So ppl should get children at 50, when they have acruued
parental leave?

People should get parental leave when they need it..

~~~
adventured
> thats simply stupid.

Is that really all you have to offer?

> So ppl should get children at 50, when they have acruued parental leave

The very obvious flaw in your "thats simply stupid" conclusion is incorrectly
speculating on how fast I think parental leave should accrue. Why would it
take decades to accrue? N months per year, then cap it at a reasonable maximum
until or unless it's used, with the accrued time/value persisting (which could
have benefits for grandparents, people that adopt at older ages, and so on).

~~~
martin_bech
I think its funny that ppl (mostly Americans), try and invent complicated new
ways of doing things like this, instead of using how 90% of the civilised
world does it.

Accrued Paid Paternity Leave, wouldnt work because of these reasons.

What if you get pregnant "by accident"?

What if you want to change jobs/company?

What if you get fired?

The rest of the world, solves this by having the leave not directly paid for
by the employer, but by a fund. This also means that female employees, are
more or less "risk free" for employers, as the leave, is not a direct expense.

This fund is paid into, by all employers, for about 43USD pr quarter pr
Employee. (Danish figures). That small amount means 28 weeks of fully paid
paternity leave for all. (After that, you get a smaller amount, based on
sallary but capped)

------
ahaferburg
What I don't get is, why don't they make a study on how first world countries
do it, see which ones are having trouble, see which ones are thriving (France
I think), implement trials in a few states, see what's what, then go from
there. Bill Gates' opinion on this shouldn't matter.

------
m0zg
IMO this should be woman's (or man's if man is staying at home with the kids)
choice, and their choice alone. And paid leave should be at least 2 years,
even if partially paid. The job market hasn't been this tight in 50 years, now
would be a good time to introduce longer paid family leaves.

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
Two years seems absolutely absurd on many levels.

~~~
paganel
It is not absurd. We have (I think partially-)paid 2-year parental-leave here
in Romania and people and companies manage just fine. Of course, not all of
the involved people choose to stay for the whole two years at home, but I have
lots of former colleagues and acquaintances that did just that and they were
more than ok, even more than that, the companies hiring them managed to stay
in business, even if they weren't owned by successful business people like
Bill Gates. 6-month only parental-leave is a joke, no parental-leave is
barbarous.

~~~
germinalphrase
Six months? My wife and I receive exactly as many paid days as we have saved
up PTO. So, about three weeks each. Any time after that is unpaid, but we’re
protected from being fired for three months.

~~~
paganel
This sounds so wrong to me, and I don't even have kids yet. Until issues like
this one aren't resolved then the inequality between men and women (in wages,
management positions) will continue to remain the same, no matter the media
rhetoric, for the simple fact that many women will choose not to go back to
work (it's mostly women that make that sacrifice).

------
cjCamel
No-one on this thread has mentioned breast feeding. The WHO recommends
exclusively breast feeding a child for 6 months, and to continue until they
are at least 2 years old. I understand that this is not possible or desirable
for many parents, but the choice to do so should be available.

No surprise that even the most socially responsible companies in the US are
skewed towards the extreme low end of parental leave allowance relative to
other countries.

US employment law doesn't incentivise long term employment full stop, so
little wonder some on here find it hard to understand why it is worth paying
employees to come back.

~~~
agensaequivocum
There is nothing wrong with bottle feeding. Some children do not breast feed
well, some do. You should just go with what works.

~~~
kazinator
Formula can be consistently made. The "breast milk is best" argument depends
on cherry-picked breast milk.

Is it still better than formula if Mom drinks or has some health problem?
Stuff passes into breast milk. If Mom takes an ibuprofen, into the breast milk
it goes.

Can HIV pass through breast milk? No clear answer:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8826332](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8826332)

If you look at the scientific arguments about how breast milk is better, they
revolve around hair-splitting. Like increased risk of necrotising
enterocolitis in pre-term babies.

~~~
jacobolus
Your post is mommy-shaming FUD.

Ibuprofen is considered safe to take while breastfeeding. A brief web search
didn’t turn up any concerning evidence (maybe you know of some?). There are
some medicines which concentrate in breastmilk, but ibuprofen is not one of
them.

Women who need certain prescription medicines, are undergoing chemotherapy,
have HIV or certain other viral diseases, have had significant lead exposure,
etc. are clearly warned not to breastfeed.

Mom has to drink alcohol extremely heavily on a regular basis to make a
serious problem for a breastfeeding baby.

Alcohol content in breastmilk is roughly comparable to blood alcohol content.
3 drinks and it’s like 1 part in 1000. I wouldn’t advise breastfeeding women
to drink several drinks at a time, but more for their own health than their
infant’s – if mom loses motor control, becomes belligerent, starts making poor
choices, etc. that isn’t great for her family. People in general should use
alcohol sparingly, but new mothers don’t deserve any special scorn for
drinking.

At worst, some studies suggest that babies drink less on average in a
breastfeeding session immediately after the mother was drinking, presumably
because the taste is strange.

The dangerous one for the baby is not a mother drinking while breastfeeding,
but regular or heavy drinking during early pregnancy. The period of time when
alcohol can have the most severe negative effects often comes before a woman
realizes she is pregnant.

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chiefalchemist
Question: Does this work for both parents? That is, in theory, both parents
are eligible for a year (or six months?) of paid leave? Might it be possible
to not have both parents take the time simultaneously? That is, one parent
takes the first six months then the other parent the second six?

Mind you, that takes some coordination, but it's not impossible, is it?

------
conanbatt
I think paid leave is just plain immoral. It is up to the parent to evaluate
how much they care for their child vs foregone salaries. Paid leave is just a
distortion: it makes employees and employers dance around a topic that is not
in the employers business.

How can you correctly price how much the time with your kid is worth if you
get gifted money for inflating it?

The worst part of this debate is that its a constant pull between two players
that understand the same policy in different ways: employees think they are
getting free money, but in reality the employer distributes the cost from one
employee to the others. (ie. if you have a budget for 10 employees, and you
make employees 10% more expensive, now you get 9 employees).

So employees ask for something thinking its in their benefit, and employers
are thinking "as long as the competition gets hurt as much as we do, we don't
care".

And to add insult to injury, its the richest of the richest that get the
longest paid leave benefits, longest pto, etc etc, mostly to reduce tax
burden.

~~~
cjCamel
> I think paid leave is just plain immoral. It is up to the parent to evaluate
> how much they care for their child vs foregone salaries.

This is delusional or dangerous thinking. Are you an ultra privileged &
sheltered young man? You do realise that even if a parent chooses to work,
they have to pay someone for childcare?

~~~
conanbatt
Quite the opposite, form a very unsheltered life. It is the sheltered people
that want to get paid leave, which is why the highest income workers are the
ones that get the most paid leave of all.

> You do realise that even if a parent chooses to work, they have to pay
> someone for childcare?

That is an argument against paid leave: if a worker takes up the "nanny job"
for their own son, they are capturing 100% of the value they do. No need to
pay them twice for it.

~~~
cjCamel
> It is the sheltered people that want to get paid leave

The sheltered people in your life. Are they the ones that have mortgages?

~~~
conanbatt
The unsheltered people of my life don't have stable salaries or jobs, dont
even imagine what paid leave is. The ones with 6 figure salaries are the ones
on paid leave. Still anecdotal, but im pretty sure you will find that most
paid leave is taking by people that dont need it. The ones that need it the
most dont have stable jobs or benefits.

~~~
cjCamel
Would like like to reword your first answer to take into account your last
answer?

Also, my bad - not sure where you live but it sounds horrifying. I can't
believe there is somewhere in the world where people on 6 figure salaries are
the only ones with access to basic employment benefits, and those less
fortunate have no government provided safety net (now that sounds morally
bankrupt to me).

I'm curious as well to find out if there are any people considered to be in
the middle classes? Say...two full time earners taking in less than 6 figures,
for instance? Is that a rarity in your country?

>im pretty sure you will find that most paid leave is taking by people that
dont need it.

Not where I'm from, no. Most of the people I know that take paid leave are
families where both parents need to continue to work to cover cost of living.

~~~
conanbatt
> not sure where you live but it sounds horrifying

San Francisco, US.

------
boomboomsubban
The important number in here is that only 16% of American workers have access
to paid time off. Many people are considering whether twelve days is too much
before the loss of income causes serious problems, debating the ideal length
seems like a less important issue.

------
jahaja
Is the framing of this article normal in the US? Until a single paragraph at
the end it reads like women are the sole parent. Also the complete lack of
perspective of seeing parental leave as an end in itself, rather than some
career crippling modernity.

------
agensaequivocum
Unpopular opinion: Extended paternal leave is unnecessary in most cases. I
took one week off (my choice) for the birth of my son and it was plenty. My
second is on the way and I will probably do likewise.

------
novaRom
>> The average cost to provide center-based licensed child care for an infant
in the United States is $1,230 per month.

It's interesting, how is it in other countries?

------
dv_dt
How soon those feel good foundations go from low infrastructure toilets, to
risky gene drive research, to economic proscriptions.

------
HorizonXP
It's going to be difficult to have this discussion without deriding the state
of affairs in the US, especially in comparison to the rest of the world. I'm
Canadian, so my points are through that lens.

The Gates Foundation is a private entity, so they're free to make whatever HR
decisions they see fit. Realistically, 6 months of paid leave is still very
generous compared to what's legally mandated. And their justification for
reducing it from 12 months makes sense when you look at it from their
perspective. They have work to do, and it's disruptive to have new parents
leave, and be paid to do work that is unrelated.

Which is exactly why it's a shared financial burden when you look at other
countries with paid parental leave. The benefit of paying a parent to take
care of a new child is not seen directly by the parent's employer. Instead,
that benefit is seen by the rest of society, insofar as the child is properly
taken care of.

I'm a new parent, my son just turned 5 months. My wife is taking 18 months of
paid leave, since that's become an option here in Canada. It comes at a
reduced payout rate (i.e the same money you'd get if you took 12 months, but
spread out over 18 months), so my wife has not met another mom who has taken
18 months. Furthermore, our new budget is adding 5-8 weeks of secondary
parental leave that is only available to the other caregiver/parent.

There is a _lot_ to do when a new baby arrives. Realistically, even though I
didn't take time off, my productivity dropped, since I did my best to help out
as my wife adjusted and healed. Furthermore, there is a _lot_ to do as our son
grows, to ensure he grows and learns enough to enter the education system by
age 4. To turn him into a productive, functioning adult is 18+ years of work.
As a society, we're asking every parent to make a significant investment in
our future.

Therefore, it makes much more sense to socialize the cost. Paid parental leave
should be provided by the government, not (directly) by the employer. And that
support shouldn't just end at some arbitrary age cutoff. Sure, an 18-month-old
is much more developed than a newborn, but my wife and I cannot imagine
putting our son into daycare at that age. Instead, we're asking our family to
take care of him until he's 2 years old. Then he's going into daycare, which
we have to pay for out of pocket. Oh sure, there are some tax breaks
available, but even when you factor that in, my wife's salary barely covers
the cost of daycare. His daycare will cost more than my engineering tuition +
housing cost.

My point is that in Canada, we've socialized the cost of the first 12-18
months, given some tax breaks for the 18 months to 4 years point, and then
finally, socialized the cost of education when the child enters school.
There's a gap there that should be filled.

In short, private employers cannot be expected to bear these costs alone,
which is why most countries socialize it. We all know the US is way behind on
this, and kudos to the Gates Foundation for trying to do something for their
employees.

But this move is shortsighted, but it's endemic of the shortsightedness of our
society as a whole. We expect everyone to be well-adjusted, educated, and
functioning members of society, but are unwilling to bear the costs of
supporting parents in raising children. Then, we wring our hands wondering why
certain kids/adults seem to be lagging behind.

