Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap • Hacker News Board

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#141

Post by zimablue » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #135

zimablue wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Women have to be there for the birth, and let's say it's very hard to work immediately before and after, so that's a month generously. That has no connection with this idea, which is many months of leave. 2. As explained elsewhere, we do not need to raise the population for society to function. If we did, it would be better for everyone if we did it through immigration. The strongest argument you can make that we…

We don't control who comes here with immigration so it is an unreliable source to maintain the population. Today we have an inflow of immigrants but tomorrow that may have reversed. Parents are not a class of people that structurally have more wealth. A lot of prospective parents save up in preparation for having a child, but those resources are drained by taking care of the child, on top of all the unprepared parent…

We don't control who comes here with childbirth, it's actually a far less controllable method. Immigration can have totally arbitrary rules, and until the world hits 11bn and wealth is equalised there will be an unlimited supply of immigration.

Men aren't forced not to take time off in most countries but they still generally choose not to. There are multiple ways to address the perceived gender pay gap effect of maternity leave, the most obvious is to have state funded (m|p)aternity leave. The alternative, in countries other than the US with very long maternity leaves, is to shorten it. If women aren't allowed to take 9 months off paid then there won't be any discrimination on that basis.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#142

Post by lagadu » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #72

alkonaut wrote: post #13

Don’t enforce it. Just start with making it tax funded, not employer funded. Next make part of the parental leave shared between parents be allocated to the father. Now if they don’t use it they will lose a benefit they already paid taxes for. The last and most important step is to keep this system in place for a generation or more, after which any parent not doing a fair chunk of the parental leave will be considere…

Just start with making it tax funded, not employer funded. I guess it'd be good for small businesses, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about paying $40,000,000 a year to Larry Ellison while he was on parental leave.

On our side of the pond you only get paid the corresponding of your full salary based on what you discount for social security. In your example, if he's getting 40m a year, then he's also paying the corresponding social security for a 40m/y income.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#143

Post by curtis » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

We're thinking about the problem all wrong. Clearly the way to close the wage gap is to get women to stop having kids.

Of course I'm not serious, but then I personally don't care if there is a wage gap as long as it is not being caused by workplace discrimination against women.

If instead it's the case that the wage gap is caused by women (disproportionately to men) making an informed choice to de-prioritize work in order to prioritize childcare, then I am totally alright with that.

Maybe the impact of the wage gap is too big even if it's caused by women making informed choices. We could choose to offset it directly, for example by subsidizing children -- kind of like a basic income just for kids. By doing it that way we could make the system largely agnostic about whether it's a father or a mother deciding to prioritize childcare over work in any particular case.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#144

Post by wdwhwq9484 » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

chris_mc wrote: post #82

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…

Everyone is talking about needing to control population, but according to current figures, the population will level our around 11b people around 2100. Check out www.gapminder.org for more info, but a lot of what people think about the world is wrong.

> 11b people around 2100

Color me skeptical. If previous prognostications are and indicator, humanity in general cannot predict the future more than 5-10 years out with reasonable accuracy.

Another way of saying this is that the confidence interval on global population estimates 80 years into the future is most likely large enough to render the estimate meaningless.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#145

Post by zimablue » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #134

zimablue wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the tyranny of the majority is NOT the safe thing to assume in a democratic system, or that that would be the right thing. Our systems are build to insulate decision making from 51% splits. But we're not arguing that we're about to do something from a blank slate, the blank slate point is that just because society DOES something, doesn't mean that it WANTs to do something, for the same reasons as above we don't d…

You now have 22 posts in this thread (and counting), it seems you are very much upset for having to pay for something that you do not feel that you benefit from. But if you consider that you too are a product of the societies that chose to support children and if you accept that once children are there it helps to have them well nourished, healthy and smart then maybe you'll come to the conclusion that your position…

Thanks for counting, if you'd read them you'd see that I've addressed your points already and you aren't moving the debate on. To reiterate though, supporting parents with a holiday is not the same as supporting children. My dad taking time off doesn't make me healthy, well nourished or smart. Healthy is healthcare, well nourished is money and only god can do smart. Immigration is an alternative to domestic population growth. Domestic population growth or even maintenance is not a positive or necessary outcome. There are alternative approaches such as state-funded childcare or a generally different work culture that would be more effective and fairer to help native-born children.

Hypotheticals aren't a silly debating tactic, they're an important component of logic and reason, see the discovery of SR.

You clearly do not understand the concept of the tyranny of the majority, it's not what this thread is about but since you asked...

The tyranny of the majority refers to the problem with voting systems where anything that 51% agrees to, no matter how unjust, will pass, especially where it harms the 10%. The reason why it does not apply to western democratic systems: Major changes can require supermajorities. Constutions and rights laws restrict the range of possible laws that can be passed. Citizens do not vote directly on outcomes but elect a representative who is expected to consider things more deeply on their behalf.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#146

Post by lovich » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

zimablue wrote: post #141

lovich wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't control who comes here with immigration so it is an unreliable source to maintain the population. Today we have an inflow of immigrants but tomorrow that may have reversed. Parents are not a class of people that structurally have more wealth. A lot of prospective parents save up in preparation for having a child, but those resources are drained by taking care of the child, on top of all the unprepared parent…

We don't control who comes here with childbirth, it's actually a far less controllable method. Immigration can have totally arbitrary rules, and until the world hits 11bn and wealth is equalised there will be an unlimited supply of immigration. Men aren't forced not to take time off in most countries but they still generally choose not to. There are multiple ways to address the perceived gender pay gap effect of mate…

You obviously don't want children to be born for some reason. This change is still tangential to your goals. What is is doing is adding an interface of IParent to both men and women so that when companies do their cost benefit analysis men and women are treated equally.

That is the whole change, full stop. If you want to get rid of parental leave so that you don't have to pay a dollar to maintain society, that is a different situation that has nothing to do with this

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#147

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:42 PM UTC

karmajunkie wrote: post #124

smallnamespace wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it disproportionately affects those who choose to have children. This doesn't eliminate an imbalance, it would simply shift some of the burden around.

And that's a bad thing because...? The he whole point is to eliminate one of the primary causes of gender inequality in the workplace. Spreading the burden of parenting is exactly the right thing to do.

[deleted]

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#148

Post by zimablue » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:46 PM UTC

lagadu wrote: post #139

zimablue wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets better, what if you're not with the mother. What if it was a one night stand, or you donated sperm to her as a single parent. What if you're not with her, she told you she was on the pill and it wasn't true. What if you're in a non binary relationship (2 fathers?). What if you adopt a young child.

Just look across the pond, many countries solved that over here and we managed to survive.

I can't find a source on which countries enforce fathers taking leave, I assume at least one scandinavian country, which others? I don't think it's common at all, could be wrong.

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#149

Post by malvosenior » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #123

malvosenior wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it’s been proven over and over that there is no wage gap: https://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy...

That is an unedited opinion piece [1] from somebody who works for an antifeminist organization [2]. If that's what you count as proof, then maybe consider you're not being objective here. [1] https://www.cjr.org/innovations/newsrooms_boost_traffic.php and also https://www.joshsteimle.com/writing/how-being-a-forbes-contr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Women%27s_Forum

Can you dispute the claims made? I grabbed the first Google result but there are many. I can’t find a single piece of data that says women are paid 70% of men for the same job. Can you?

Re: Mandatory paternity leave would help close the wage gap

#150

Post by srslack » Sun, Sep 30, 2018, 7:56 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #123

malvosenior wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it’s been proven over and over that there is no wage gap: https://www.forbes.com/sites/karinagness/2016/04/12/dont-buy...

That is an unedited opinion piece [1] from somebody who works for an antifeminist organization [2]. If that's what you count as proof, then maybe consider you're not being objective here. [1] https://www.cjr.org/innovations/newsrooms_boost_traffic.php and also https://www.joshsteimle.com/writing/how-being-a-forbes-contr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Women%27s_Forum

It's described as anti-feminist by some critics, namely the critics who are being disingenuous in their use of statistics lacking proper controls, or outright lying or misrepresenting what the statistics mean. It's not the brand of feminism they identify with, but it's still feminism.

Perhaps "proven" wasn't the best word for the parent, you can't ever prove a negative, but considering the wage gap vanishes to less than several cents with proper controls in every serious study, even those done by "pro-feminist" organizations that you claim would be objective[1], it's simply a myth.

Objectively, a gap of 4 to 7 cents may exist, but also may just need further statistical controls[2]. The 70 cent gap oft quoted is entirely meant to incite emotion, social unrest, government action, and is dismissive of the progress that has been made.

[1] http://history.aauw.org/files/2013/01/AAUWGraduatingtoaPayGa... * It's tucked in here, there's dozens of pages going on about the pay gap, but you'll see that in several figures that they talk about the gap with controls versus without them.

[2] https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/public-policy/hr-public-policy... * "Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."