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Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

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Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#21

Post by lainga »

patagonia wrote: post #20
oconnore wrote: post #7

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.…

“What’s valuable for men...” It begins with “Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap”. Not, what would be valuable for men. A woman who just gave birth just spent an increasingly personally costly, and completely requisite (so long as the pregnancy is wanted), nine months simply getting to the maternity leave portion of the process. I can’t immagi how a woman would perceive for men to gawk at it even…

Shades of Bergeron.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#22

Post by Smushman »

oconnore wrote: post #7

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.…

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.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#23

Post by chillydawg »

mc32 wrote: post #15
treyfitty wrote: post #3

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 se…

That's awful. Why bother with a program if it's only there as a trap? Ok, so a few people take it in good faith; then the company lays those people off so as teach others not to take the leave... So they're back to square one where no one takes parental leave. It's not mandated (yet) by law, so why bother to set-up bad goodwill? Just to bait people into joining? It seems a very poisonous scheme with little benefit fo…

It's left hand not talking to the right. The HR people put the system in place as a way of promoting equality, hiring more easily and generally doing a decent thing. Individual managers of teams, with fixed budgets, high workloads and bonus targets around completing those workloads are probably not internally compensated for the cost of HR's policy, thus they look for ways to get rid of such people.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#25

Post by was_boring »

brighteyes wrote: post #17

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 d…

Arguably, decreasing human kind's birthrate is a net positive. Even in the absence of that, being a dad, and knowing many dads, we've already made the choice to "disadvantage" ourselves -- and wish we could do it more. What stops us is the fact that we would lose our jobs which disadvantages our kids.

So I say bring on mandatory leave! The vast majority will be much happier.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#26

Post by kgwgk »

jacquesm wrote: post #18
cimmanom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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.

> 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?

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#27

Post by 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.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#28

Post by treyfitty »

magnetic wrote: post #11
treyfitty wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's your skill set?

Analytics + Data Science.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#29

Post by jacquesm »

kgwgk wrote: post #26
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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?

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.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#30

Post by john_moscow »

barrkel wrote: post #14

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 em…

>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?
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