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Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

nytimes.com

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Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#101

Post by lhorie »

hotdog97 wrote: post #58
newfoundglory wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you want people to do when they are job searching while pregnant? Are you just wishing you'd been told on her first day on the job?

Let me answer this with a counter-question. If you're pregnant and somehow hiding it really well, do you think it makes sense for you to job-hunting six weeks before you're due to give birth?

If you knew you had to take time off in two months to recover from a scheduled medical operation, would you rather spend the next two months earning a salary or surviving on your savings?

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#102

Post by jschwartzi »

sokoloff wrote: post #44
jonathankoren wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? It’s paid leave. You get your whole salary, but you don’t come to work.

Yes, and where do you imagine the money comes from?

From all of us single people who are likely never going to have children. I'm fine with that. Hell, you can take it out of the mortgage interest deduction that I will never get.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#103

Post by to_bpr »

partiallypro wrote: post #10
progers7 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is practical because many men do not take their full paternity leave. For biological reasons alone, the woman needs to take more.

You could simply make it mandatory time off. But either way, he has a point. A company doesn't want to risk hiring someone that might miss a huge swath of time, for any reason. Not in every job but in many jobs, an employee isn't just an employee, they are an investment. If it was mandatory for both sexes though, it would level the playing field.

>You could simply make it mandatory time off.

Then I won't notify the company when I've had a child. Simple as.

Don't consider going down the road of "you must declare what is happening in your private life to your private employer" as someone else did either, without at least considering what an absolute breach of privacy that would involve.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#104

Post by haihaibye »

untog wrote: post #19
Geeek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social and bioligical pressure*. I think we should strive to have equal maternity/paternity leave, but let’s not deny the origins of the current reality.

Why would fathers have biological pressure to spend less time with their children? I'd take five years paternity leave if I could get it.

Maternal investment has a 160M year evolutionary history (first mammals)

Paternal investmemt has at most 6M years (time since split from chimps who have almost none)

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#105

Post by xienze »

to_bpr wrote: post #87
s73v3r_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So while I'd like to force the startup to make the decision without considering this factor, is that always reasonable?" I believe it is. As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup.

>As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup. Err no. It wasn't long ago that a family could survive well on a single income with the mother at home, cars paid, schooling sorted and food on the table. Not even remotely feasible on a single income now, unless you're talking executive pay. Society has by and large chosen to abandon…

Don’t forget feminism’s role in this as well. The traditional working father/stay at home mother arrangement has been deemed oppressive and degrading to women.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#106

Post by [deleted] »

JungleGymSam wrote: post #90
tptacek wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the only reason to tell a prospective employer about your pregnancy status is to enable them to unlawfully discriminate against you based on that status.

OK but why should a company hire someone if they are almost "immediately" going to be put on paid leave? edit: Yes, downvotes will change my mind. You're all doing a wonderful job and are definitely morally superior to me and I'm unworthy of your keystrokes.

[deleted]

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#107

Post by kentm »

knuththetruth wrote: post #89
lhorie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that illegal?

I imagine that Google, famous for their participation in an illegal wage fixing cartel and with its literal army of high-paid attorneys, isn’t too afraid of the legal consequences of discriminating against one woman. Well, so long as the NYTimes doesn’t write about it at least.

I doubt the lawyers would OK such a thing, even if they weren't afraid of the legal consequences. Interviewers are just employees on the loop with minimal training, and as such you're likely to run into a non-trivial portion that do dumb things in the interviews.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#108

Post by xienze »

lovich wrote: post #6
rednerrus wrote: post #2

One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. If I gave you the choice of two employees, one of whom would take 12 weeks of paid leave and one who would take 2 weeks of paid leave, which would you choose? If you offered both sexes 12 weeks of paid leave, you wouldn't have to make this decision.

You'd have to make it mandatory leave. The social pressure is still tilted towards women as care givers and men as providers so more men will end up not using the leave. If it becomes mandatory then it's just a baked in rising to every employee, _and_ will probably do better for society to have both parents get time with their children. I believe some European states solve this by having the state cover ~60% of your…

The burden for companies isn’t so much paying the employee but rather losing an employee for an extended period of time.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#109

Post by to_bpr »

JungleGymSam wrote: post #99
lsd5you wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than merely downvoting perhaps people can actually try to argue the point and answer the difficult questions. What are the unintended consequences of this kind of legislation? Should the domain of women just be in big companies and government? What is the relative cost of losing jobs due to pregnancy (with some compensation from the government) vs not being hired for certain jobs in the first place. Do we end…

It all boils down to "I'm above your argument but I can't defend myself, and I'm anonymous, so I'll let you know I think you're wrong with a single click".

It's tribalism, and it has become absolutely rampant on this site recently.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#110

Post by Retra »

JungleGymSam wrote: post #90
tptacek wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the only reason to tell a prospective employer about your pregnancy status is to enable them to unlawfully discriminate against you based on that status.

OK but why should a company hire someone if they are almost "immediately" going to be put on paid leave? edit: Yes, downvotes will change my mind. You're all doing a wonderful job and are definitely morally superior to me and I'm unworthy of your keystrokes.

A company doesn't just exist for the benefit of its shareholders. It exists for the benefit of society and its employees.

And quite crying about down-votes.

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