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Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

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Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#291

Post by lliamander »

rpvnwnkl wrote: post #241
wvenable wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're making assumptions and predictions based on nothing. If someone leaves, they leave. If they come back, they come back. Male or female. Makes no difference. You can't control it. You can't predict it. You imagine a level of control that you simply don't have. Conversely, there is a net benefit to society that simply cannot be ignored. It's life.

The approach blucalm is offering is nearly the definition of sex discrimination. You can’t play the odds when hiring in protected classes, you need to assess the applicants on an individual basis...

> you need to assess the applicants on an individual basis...

Except that he probably cannot (for example) ask the applicant if they are likely to have kids or use the leave policy in the near future. That would be judging them on an individual basis, but in many jurisdictions it's prohibited.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#292

Post by nasalgoat »

Mirioron wrote: post #262
nasalgoat wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner worked at a 10-person company and took the year off for parental leave. They hired a temp to fill her role, who left when she came back. I work for a 15-person company and we had a developer take a year off. We hired a temp developer who left when the other dev came back. Not sure why this is hard to understand?

Because many businesses can't afford to do so. I worked at a small company where a senior dev took a year off. His replacement didn't quite fit the same roles as well and the project fell apart. I believe the company fell apart afterwards too.

Well, if your business was in Canada or Europe, you'd have to figure it out. And as a parent who has taken advantage of this, it's worthwhile due to the positive effect it has on the children.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#293

Post by int_19h »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #121
TLC555 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada can do it because Canada is not the US. In the US, we have too much emphasis on the individual. In other societies, there is more emphasis on the collective. This opinion may not be entirely accurate, but it's worth stating this basic difference.

Do you think Canada is more collectivist than individualist?

Consider this.

Idealized US is "freedom, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."

Idealized Canada is "peace, order, and good government." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace,_order,_and_good_governm...)

I'm neither Canadian nor American, but I have been a permanent resident of Canada, and now live in US. The day-to-day differences are relatively minor in comparable geographic regions, but mainstream American and Canadian politics and political philosophy is fairly different.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#294

Post by dragonwriter »

lliamander wrote: post #271
Dylan16807 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's the rub, can you (at a population level) have a birth rate at or above replacement if both parents are expected to find employment outside of the home? I don't think that's realistic. That's far more of a child care issue than a parental leave issue. If both parents take a year of leave each for three children that's not even close to a tenth of their working life. And we are expecting far too many hours to…

> That's far more of a child care issue than a parental leave issue. If both parents take a year of leave each for three children that's not even close to a tenth of their working life. That's part of my point. If you need to use childcare services, then the cost of having children rises linearly with the number of children. If one parent stays home, then the costs grow logarithmically (I've heard anecdotally that af…

> I've heard anecdotally that after 4 kids, having more doesn't really require much additional effort because the older ones can be recruited to help with the younger ones

I've heard anecdotally, that after four (sometimes two or three, depending on who is describing it) kids having more doesn't require additional effort because there's a limit to available effort, and you're just into how it is divided at that point, effectively transitioning from K to r strategy.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#295

Post by wvenable »

lliamander wrote: post #291
rpvnwnkl wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The approach blucalm is offering is nearly the definition of sex discrimination. You can’t play the odds when hiring in protected classes, you need to assess the applicants on an individual basis...

> you need to assess the applicants on an individual basis... Except that he probably cannot (for example) ask the applicant if they are likely to have kids or use the leave policy in the near future. That would be judging them on an individual basis, but in many jurisdictions it's prohibited.

And someone who is planning on jumping ship for another job isn't going to tell you anything either. So what difference does it make?

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#296

Post by wvenable »

dwild wrote: post #179
bluecalm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you need to play the odds. If decision A means 5% chance you can't pay for a good college for your kid and decision B means 2% chance of being in that position which one do you choose? If I run 100+ people firm then the cost is small enough that I can eat it for making the world a better and fairer place and I also get benefits of more inclusive work place. If I run a small 2 people business I will weigh ev…

So you are saying that you have a higher chance that a young woman will carry a baby than having a young man change for a better paying offer? I'm one of theses young one out of college and I can tell you, based around me, your stats are clearly wrong ;). Most don't care about babies, but they all certainly care about getting more interesting jobs. I'm Canadian too.

Canada also has paternity leave; and parents can split the leave in any number of different ways as long as it adds up to a year. And yes, men do take advantage of that benefit as well.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#297

Post by amscanne »

unavoidable wrote: post #75
simonsarris wrote: post #11

> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, w…

Surprisingly few people are actually trying to answer this question on this thread. The answer is straightforward: you either structure your organization so that there are enough overlapping responsibilities to account for parental leaves (e.g. good business practice of not making a fragile organization), or you hire a temporary employee explicitly on a 1 year "parental leave" contract. The labour market is quite goo…

Another consequence that I observed in Canada is that employers have shifted a bit from full-time employees to perpetually renewing contracts. So exactly like that example you gave, the good temp finds another “position” which happens to be a one year contract at the same firm (not necessarily filling in for a leave). This contract gets renewed each year, and the company is not on the hook to “keep the spot open” for a year when the employee has a child. They just don’t renew the contract and hire another contractor. I knew several people in this position. (I believe one actually worked for the federal government, ironically.)

IMO this unintended consequence isn’t often discussed. IIRC it’s also an issue in France, where because it’s nearly impossible to fire someone, you’ll basically never hire full time employees if you can avoid it, especially if they’re young and unproven.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#298

Post by wvenable »

Mirioron wrote: post #262
nasalgoat wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner worked at a 10-person company and took the year off for parental leave. They hired a temp to fill her role, who left when she came back. I work for a 15-person company and we had a developer take a year off. We hired a temp developer who left when the other dev came back. Not sure why this is hard to understand?

Because many businesses can't afford to do so. I worked at a small company where a senior dev took a year off. His replacement didn't quite fit the same roles as well and the project fell apart. I believe the company fell apart afterwards too.

And if that senior dev just left for a better job?

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#299

Post by bobthepanda »

lliamander wrote: post #288
adamsea wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the law applys to everyone then wouldn’t that one particular part of the playing field be even?

That just means that more businesses fail that could have otherwise succeeded.

You could say the same thing about minimum wage, safety and environmental regulations, child labor laws, workers taking weekends, etc.

At some point, as a society we set a minimum bar on what kind of successful businesses we want to employ people. What that minimum bar is can be debated, but "more businesses will fail" is not exactly a straightforward indicator of the value of a regulation.

Plus, certain types of labor laws, particularly those around leave, only apply to businesses above a certain size.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#300

Post by lliamander »

eropple wrote: post #147
bluecalm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not allowed to ask though. That's the whole point: extended maternal leaves cause discrimination when hiring women. I would love to be able to hire on merits alone but if I am facing much higher risk of not being able to put my children in a good school when hiring a women then I won't do that. No amount of moral outrage is going to put someone's children above my own. If you want me to not discriminate then ple…

An equally effective way to remove that incentive is to break your business in half when you decide to avail yourself of it. It is unfortunate that we have, as a collection of societies, largely forgotten that the fictitious entity that is your company exists at and only at the sufferance of the society that decides it's a good idea to let it exist--and that we-the-society can demand that you play ball with the socie…

It's much easier to destroy than to create.

"Many that live, deserve death. Some that die, deserve life. Can you give that to them?"

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