Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by learc83 » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #288

tptacek wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They asked about the resume gap from when she had our kids.

Oh, that's different, IIUC, if an employer asks about a history gap, and the candidate volunteers the information "I had kids," they can take that into account. The system's broken.

None of that matters. An employer is free to ask any questions they want.

What they aren't free to do is make discriminatory hiring decisions based on membership in protected classes.

Avoiding asking certain types of personal questions is one way to avoid the appearance of discriminatory hiring practices.

>they can take that into account.

They can't take that into account just because you bring it up. Whether or not you bring it up or they ask doesn't matter. Some jurisdictions have laws explicitly forbiding discrimination against parents, and the federal prohibition on sex discrimination means that discrimination against caregivers is generally prohibited (since women are more likely to be caregivers, discrimination against them is defacto discriminatory towards women)

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

#312

Post by paxys » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:55 AM UTC

MattLaroche wrote: post #233

imh wrote: post #97

I wonder if this discrimination is exacerbated in silicon valley where job tenures are so short and perks are so good. If on average, you keep employees for two years and offer 6-12 month parental leave, then an employee who uses it gets paid for two years while actively working for 12-18 months. That's 30-100% higher cost to you the employer per month of active output from the employee. The shorter the tenures and t…

I just switched jobs in San Francisco, and part of my search was parental leave. I did not see any companies in the 6-12 month paid parental leave range. 6-20 weeks is the range I saw. Twitter at 20, Square (and I think Facebook) at 16, Google at 12, and most at 6. I'm totally onboard with it being government funded instead of employer funded. I think tying it to salary (and what people pay in) makes sense, as many p…

Netflix gives 12 months for maternity/paternity.

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

#313

Post by skookumchuck » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:57 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #184

rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. We also live in a world where the stock market ceases to exist if there isn’t a new generation of consumers and workers. (Facebook’s stock price is predicated on the idea that 1 years from now there will still be young people to advertise to.) Children create internalized costs (to parents, to businesses that hire parents), but…

So here's a concrete example of the types of problems existencebox is highlighting: My sister was laid off from her employer of 8 years 3 months after her first child was born. She was a top performer, and they'd been throwing raises and bonuses at her before she got pregnant. Over the same year or so (there were 3-4 rounds of layoffs), every single pregnant woman or mother with kids under 2 that she knew at the comp…

> Where will you find the time?

If she doesn't have the time to work on a lawsuit, why would she have had the time to work at her job?

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

#314

Post by paxys » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:58 AM UTC

skookumchuck wrote: post #309

tinbad wrote: post #14

Personally experienced it. Wife worked at Google, had always positive performance reviews. Come pregnancy time she informed her manager, 3 days later they put her on a performance improvement plan. It didn't take long for them to realize they were making a big mistake, risking an expensive lawsuit so they let it go and let her have her paid 12 month leave. After returning she got the choice to do the PIP or take seve…

12 months paid and not having to show up for work? > ... wasn't going back to work anyway ... Adding in severance pay on top of that, sounds like a sweet deal!

Who knows, may have received more in a lawsuit.

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

#315

Post by teddyfrozevelt » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 5:00 AM UTC

home_boi wrote: post #269

randyrand wrote: post #140

Being anti discrimination started with not discriminating people for things they can't control. Race, gender, etc. Now we're moving into territory of not discriminating against optional things people choose (having children). This is a very significant change, IMO. I wonder how far it can be taken. I think there's a fair argument that since pregnancy only affects women then it counts as gender discrimination. However…

> optional things people choose (having children) Note that having children is something that only women choose. Men and women choose to have sex. Women choose to abort or have a child.

Both can use birth control.

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

#316

Post by virgilp » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 5:00 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #184

rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. We also live in a world where the stock market ceases to exist if there isn’t a new generation of consumers and workers. (Facebook’s stock price is predicated on the idea that 1 years from now there will still be young people to advertise to.) Children create internalized costs (to parents, to businesses that hire parents), but…

So here's a concrete example of the types of problems existencebox is highlighting: My sister was laid off from her employer of 8 years 3 months after her first child was born. She was a top performer, and they'd been throwing raises and bonuses at her before she got pregnant. Over the same year or so (there were 3-4 rounds of layoffs), every single pregnant woman or mother with kids under 2 that she knew at the comp…

What I don't get is... forget the "illegal" part, how is that not dumb? 3 months after your first child is born is when you start to accommodate with your new life. They will spend another 6 months-1y trying to find a reasonable replacement, and might very well end up with a poorer employee, and for sure one that needs to ramp up for a few months. By that time, she will likely be fully productive again.

What baffles me the most is that my (US) employer practices rampant positive discrimination when hiring women (I don't mind, btw). And I find it hard to believe they're unique in this. How does a company go from "we ned more gender diversity" to "let's fire the young mothers!"?

WRT "how to fix this".... it's one of the few things that my country has done fairly well, but it'd be unthinkable in the US: you can legally take up to 2 years of maternity leave (or paternity leave, but not both; I think social security covers most of the costs for the company). It's at a fraction of your salary, and there are incentives to come back to work sooner, but you can also stay the full 2y. If you come back sooner, the company is often just grateful, they don't question "how will you handle it" because well... you could've stayed home; you probably figured it out how to handle a small child. And after 2y, nobody really doubts that you can handle work & parenting. Firing you while pregnant is rampantly illegal, I've never heard anybody have this problem - but, indeed, there is sometimes/in some companies a reluctance to hire young childless women. Still, overall I think the rule is pretty good.

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

#317

Post by mayniac » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

solatic wrote: post #308

habosa wrote: post #55

This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…

> is that always reasonable? This is why remote-only work culture is so important for social justice in tech. Flexible working hours from home gives women the freedom to work from their recovery beds, walk away from the computer to feed their newborns, be there to give their kids a snack and ask them how was school when they get home. One of the best hiring strategies is to focus on workers whom the market is underva…

>This is why remote-only work culture is so important for social justice in tech. Flexible working hours from home gives women the freedom to work from their recovery beds, walk away from the computer to feed their newborns, be there to give their kids a snack and ask them how was school when they get home.

Although I agree in principle, I can think of few things as horrifying as new mothers working from a hospital bed, it's practically dystopian.

IMO the way of fixing the discrimination issue is equal maternity and paternity leave, along with increasing the amount of leave. If both parents are going to take the same time off then there's less of an issue.

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

#318

Post by skookumchuck » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

tinbad wrote: post #73

dominotw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After returning she got the choice to do the PIP or take severance and leave. How does this also not result in expensive lawsuit.

Possibly. We were/are lucky in that we both have good job prospects and plenty of opportunities to pursue, at the time we just wanted to enjoy our family time and the last thing we wanted is to engage in a legal battle. I'm sure we could've gotten more out of it had we wanted it (at least financially), not sure if same can be said for the time and energy put in though.

Having been involved in a lawsuit, and despite winning it, they sap the life out of you.

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

#319

Post by indecisive_user » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #290

existencebox wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement of "recruit" is exactly the sort of misconstruction I was hoping to avoid. threatofrain got it right. This is a problem we need to address, but the solutions I've seen thus far don't take unfortunate pathologies of human psychology into account, and when we don't do that, we get very surprised at the lack of results down the line. You're more than willing to try to live in a world where you say "Becaus…

I'm super confused at what you recommend needs changing. The law against pregnancy discrimination exists, but because it's easy to circumvent you want something stricter? Or you want the gov't to subsidize it?

I believe what GP is saying is that;

1. Having a child incurs a cost to employers.

2. Regardless of legality, a business will try to minimize this cost.

3. Since it's illegal during an interview to even touch upon the subject of having kids and what a candidate's strategy may be to remain a productive employee while raising a child, employers may be even more discriminatory towards _everyone_ of a child-bearing age, in order to avoid discriminating against recent or soon-to-be parents.

So, how can we alter the incentive structure for employers such that they're not tempted to discriminate. Should we shift the cost burden of child rearing to the govt? Or should we allow an employer to ask you about your plans for having children and how it will affect your employment

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

#320

Post by cobbzilla » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 5:21 AM UTC

ryanobjc wrote: post #303

cobbzilla wrote: post #291

To reproduce this error: 1. Create a law that penalizes companies for activities against current employees with attribute X (or who might have attribute X in the future) 2. Watch as companies ride the grey-line getting away with as much as they can whilst (a) staying within the letter of the law and (b) creatively discriminating to avoid hiring anyone who has (or might in the future have) attribute X. I'm not making…

I hate these kind of sophisticate-cynical arguments. Yes you are technically correct, and thus get to revel in Being Right. Drinking a celebratory champaign. Yet we are still having negative outcomes that are highly problematic. And you have contributed nothing except, what, smugness?

Where you see smugness, I ask you to see reality.

If you want a system that works, design the incentives to align correctly. This is not happening here.

If you leave a T-bone steak on your porch before you sleep, can you really be surprised in the morning to discover the raccoons have gotten it? Do you then blame the raccoons and call them evil? That might feel good but it's not going to solve anything.