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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

#471

Post by username90 »

pimmen wrote: post #366
ISL wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would hinder the employment for anyone, regardless of gender, who expects to have children.

I don't think so, in Scandinavia we have a very low unemployment rate and Stockholm is one of the most vibrant tech hubs of Europe. We offer every employee some of the most generous paternal and maternal leaves in the world. You can take time off for your children even when they're 11 years old if you save up some days (you get months off that you can take whenever you like). We also have some of the most generous la…

Employees always pays for it one way or another, high skill salaries are very low in Sweden and I'd guess that this is a big reason.

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

#472

Post by pimmen »

username90 wrote: post #471
pimmen wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, in Scandinavia we have a very low unemployment rate and Stockholm is one of the most vibrant tech hubs of Europe. We offer every employee some of the most generous paternal and maternal leaves in the world. You can take time off for your children even when they're 11 years old if you save up some days (you get months off that you can take whenever you like). We also have some of the most generous la…

Employees always pays for it one way or another, high skill salaries are very low in Sweden and I'd guess that this is a big reason.

We don't pay for health care or higher education and we have good pension plans that are government subsidized, though. We pay a lot but get a lot.

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

#473

Post by m4x »

kelnos wrote: post #363
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…

> We address that situation by categorically prohibiting discrimintion. I think a part of existencebox's point is that this prohibition doesn't entirely work, because companies discriminate anyway, and craft the playing field so that they either don't get caught, or that the cost or repercussions of fighting back end up being too high for an individual to bear. Perhaps if we were more willing to look at the actual ne…

This is a very important part of the problem in my view.

Pregnancy and child rearing has a real cost for most businesses, and it is not surprising that discrimination occurs as a result. Trying to ignore those issues and simply make discrimination illegal will never be particularly effective because the underlying issues have not been addressed.

I think we would be better off acknowledging that those issues exist, but fostering a culture where making sacrifices to support families is considered absolutely worthwhile since it is such a fundamentally important part of our society.

There should still be laws against discrimination, but we should not expect the existence of those laws to police our behaviour. A person's behaviour is primarily controlled by what they believe is right, not what they believe is legal

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

#474

Post by [deleted] »

simonh wrote: post #459
threatofrain wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we agree that companies shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex, reproductive status, or family plans. However, I would contend that a simple blanket rule doesn't address the incentives to discriminate. I would also argue that burden to compensate companies for employees taking time off for personal or family matters (regardless of sex, reproductive plan or status) should be shouldered at the…

I don't think companies like Google discriminate because of funding. They discriminate because they want their engineers doing tons of overtime and focusing on their assigned projects at the expense of personal time and private lives. No amount of funding is going to change that culture.

[deleted]

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

#475

Post by lsd5you »

tropdrop wrote: post #135
lsd5you wrote: post #34

Is this really surprising? We cannot have meritocracy and a system where some people will go missing for a year at a time (and perhaps come back with completely different motivations). There is a fundamental mismatch, and as much as some people want to frame careers as lifestyle and entitlement, the primary purpose is to get things done and produce value. The situation is even more stark for smaller companies, many o…

If we can make provisions for permanently disabled people to have jobs, then we can make provisions for temporarily disabled people to also have jobs. The article you are commenting on largely deals with large employers (Merck, Walmart), so your complaint about small companies is best directed elsewhere. Exceptions for small companies can be codified into law - GDPR does this, for instance, by letting small companies…

If we can make provisions for permanently disabled people to have jobs, then we can make provisions for temporarily disabled people to also have jobs.

Provisions are made for pregnant people. Just many people are not satisified that it is sufficient. Disabled people, can sometimes have careers not compromised by their disability (since many jobs are sitting down), other than that they probably have a very unsatisfactory work situation overall, that in noway would satisfy these kind of complaints which are actually an order of magnitude less challenging. I think in the UK 50% of blind people are completely unemployed (nevermind derailed from a certain favorite career). This is not true of women who have had children and want to work.

More daycare would be a good thing. Problem is the rather extreme regulation has made it so costly in many western countries (and not necessarily so much better).

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

#476

Post by lsd5you »

ubernostrum wrote: post #322
lsd5you wrote: post #34

Is this really surprising? We cannot have meritocracy and a system where some people will go missing for a year at a time (and perhaps come back with completely different motivations). There is a fundamental mismatch, and as much as some people want to frame careers as lifestyle and entitlement, the primary purpose is to get things done and produce value. The situation is even more stark for smaller companies, many o…

We cannot have meritocracy and a system where some people will go missing for a year at a time We don't have "meritocracy" already, so this isn't a useful objection. And when you consider that companies constantly complain about how difficult it is to find, hire and retain good people, you'd think once they've found one they'd want to, y'know, actually work to retain that person long-term. That would, after all, be w…

We don't have "meritocracy" already, so this isn't a useful objection.

Groan. Well it's all degrees, and for the purposes of this discussion, the reason fertile women are discriminated against is because of lost productivity, no other reason is posited (it's not sexism per se, even though that does exist to some degree in places).

In fact, perhaps you should consider that your entire view of this is precisely the opposite way round of where it ought to be.

You are unlikely to fully understand my view. Especially given that you are prone to uncharitable reading of things.

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

#477

Post by rosser »

mbrameld wrote: post #436
fabatka wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the timeliness of paternity/maternity leave is determined by the childbirth's date, not by anything else.

What is the childbirth's date roughly determined by? There's an event that must occur before childbirth is even possible.

Are you legit suggesting that people should do their family planning around their employer's convenience?

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

#478

Post by [deleted] »

tinbad wrote: post #66
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…

It wouldn't be much of a problem if there are better government organized programs in place. In fact, California's paid parental leave is funded by employees and is a relatively small tax of 0.9% (over the first $110k of wages only)[1] that includes other disability pay. [1] http://www.edd.ca.gov/Payroll_Taxes/Rates_-_Historical.htm

[deleted]

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

#479

Post by saudioger »

cornholio wrote: post #426
saudioger wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a 10 person company and more than 7 people are day-to-day critical you're going to have a lot of issues. When we were 8 people we had 2 parents go on 4 months of leave (with 3 month overlap). We missed them and vacation time was a little limited, but everything was fine. Companies need to account for the fact that they're comprised of human beings that reproduce. In terms of humanity you can't get much more…

> Companies need to account for the fact that they're comprised of human beings that reproduce. If think that's the point, companies do account for that, by discriminating against women, onto which the bulk of the burden of reproduction falls. Correcting this incentive structure is a prime job for government, else literally nothing can exist in few generations.

I meant that companies need to account for it as an inevitable expense, avoiding it is completely unethical and if someone's party to that decision making process they need to take a good look at themselves.

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

#480

Post by chii »

ryanobjc wrote: post #441
chii wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

insurance doesn't work when the event is controllable (like pregnancy) and happens regularly to everyone. Imagine an insurance company offering to sell to a business a plan for each employee, which covers their salary while they take leave. The premium of this plan must be lower than their total cost in salary while they are on leave, since if it was higher, the business can just pay the salary! Therefore, the insura…

You’ve just also proven health insurance doesn’t work!

yep. Health insurance shouldn't be called insurance. It should be called a levy, and all citizens making more than a certain amount have to pay into it, and all healthcare costs paid for by this fund. Insurance companies are middlemen that don't provide real value.
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