French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave • Hacker News Board

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#341

Post by amyjess » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #48

dragonwriter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well we can’t do anything about employers You can, indeed, mandate equal practices by employers and enforce that requirement.

The problem is smaller employers, which simply can't afford to shoulder the burden of paid maternity leave for 1 of their 10 employees. You can set up a graduated system like the UK has, where all employers have to pay and can reclaim a variable amount. But one way or another, any benefit the government won't foot the bill for is a benefit many parents won't get.

Honestly, so many of the problems in our work culture is caused by small businesses who don't want to play by the rules that I'm okay with just letting them hang.

This is the same argument that's used to justify lack of paid sick leave, lack of protections against discrimination (Title VII only applies to companies with 15 or more people), working people who don't have employer-provided health insurance, etc. Every single abuse a company can visit on its employees is magnified several times by small businesses.

It's time for the government to decide that small businesses not playing by the rules are a net negative for society and just let them go.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#342

Post by austincheney » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

ptyyy wrote: post #339

pi-rat wrote: post #156

28 days? That's barely enough to get your head off from work tbh. I just finished 133 days (at 80% pay) of paternity leave here in Norway, and the last part was def more rewarding than the start as you hit your new stride and regular work life grew ever more distant. All the organised toddler activities shut down because of covid19. Bought one of those child carrier backpacks, and we've been exploring forests and mou…

Around the start of August I finished up my 6 weeks here in the US and it was definitely not enough. 133+ days would have been nice, but here in Freedom-Land™ I was lucky to get the 6 weeks I was given. I know a few new dads who got no paternity leave from work, or 1-3 days. Absolutely ridiculous in this day and age.

Bank of America provides 4 months of parental leave (paternity/maternity).

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#343

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

setr wrote: post #169

car wrote: post #22

Compare this to 480 days of shared and paid parental leave in Sweden at 80% salary. The fathers are looked at negatively if the don’t take some of this time. https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-maternity-leave-pater...

I dont understand how this could be a viable strategy -- unless your job is entirely useless, the business must replace your position during your absence in order to continue normal operation; even thirty days absence should disrupt things, if an alternative isn't found.. So then what exactly do you return to? It can't be your old position exactly -- you were replaced. So its more like a vague promise that the busine…

> I dont understand how this could be a viable strategy

That's one of those miracles that happen when people pay the right amount of taxes!

It's incredible what social democracy can do for you if you stop fighting it in the name of the war to socialism!

Isn't it?

Personally I don't understand how is it viable to have a society where the GDP is astronomical and people have to spend their own money to pay insurance companies that make billions in profits, while women have no right to a fully paid maternal leave.

Unless in those countries people are considered like cogs in the machine...

> So its more like a vague promise

You can' t be fired. It's by law.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#344

Post by ghaff » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #325

ben_w wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why you are counting future earnings rather than present earnings. Thought experiment: imagine next year from Jan 1st to Dec 31st, literally every 25-year old stops working and simultaneously everyone who was due to retire in that year has their retirement delayed by one year. The total size of the workforce remains constant. If this became a permanent feature of society [0], GDP, average corporate income…

I take your point on not accounting for interest growth. Well explained. Thank you. My actual retirement is my defined contribution 401(k) account. The amount I put in now grows until I draw it down in retirement. There’s no one who will give me a year of their 401(k) drawdown, of course. What 401(k) money I and my wife don’t spend is part of our estate and inherited just like any other type of private savings. Defin…

$1400 is average. Assuming a decent professional salary and depending on when you retire, it could be closer to $2,000-$3,000.

But of course your basic point stands. Absent a separate defined-benefit pension (which still exist from older jobs in some cases), SS is fairly minimal by itself even if you own a house.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#345

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #269

dx034 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just tech workers, pretty much any academic will hit that limit. And if you live in an expensive area, 1800 Euro can be a severe cap. With mortgages to pay, it can be unrealistic for the father to take more than the minimum of two months off.

> With mortgages to pay, it can be unrealistic for the father to take more than the minimum of two months off. Fellow German here, I don't know of anyone in my friend circle rich enough to be able to put together the downpayment for a home...

[deleted]

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#346

Post by jgwil2 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

bluesquared wrote: post #264

Here in "flyover country, USA" I was looked down upon for asking to use two weeks of my own PTO after my company's new 'generous' two week paid parental leave. That request was constantly pushed off until the week of my wife's induction, when it was formally declined. I was told the request was 'excessive' and that generally the woman needs more time to recover but the father doesn't need much time. I guess our menta…

I understand if you want anonymity here but please share this story with the name of the employer on glassdoor or an appropriate forum. If our government won't protect us from these practices then we must shame such employers, and avoid selling them our labor to the greatest possible extent.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#347

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:26 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #344

sokoloff wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point on not accounting for interest growth. Well explained. Thank you. My actual retirement is my defined contribution 401(k) account. The amount I put in now grows until I draw it down in retirement. There’s no one who will give me a year of their 401(k) drawdown, of course. What 401(k) money I and my wife don’t spend is part of our estate and inherited just like any other type of private savings. Defin…

$1400 is average. Assuming a decent professional salary and depending on when you retire, it could be closer to $2,000-$3,000. But of course your basic point stands. Absent a separate defined-benefit pension (which still exist from older jobs in some cases), SS is fairly minimal by itself even if you own a house.

Thanks for the data on the top of range.

You are though, by definition, taking away an average benefit from those who would retire to give to parents, so I think average is the right reference figure when contemplating "what would the parental benefit be if funded from social security delays?"

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#348

Post by dnate » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #58

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good start would be outlawing negative scoring of candidates due to gaps.

It's not so much the gaps that are the problem as it is the effect that the delay has on growing compensation. For every gap there's missed yearly/quaterly reviews, there's missed opportunities for promotion, and there's a stall in your compensation growth overall. When you come back to work you typically come back at the wage you left.

I call BS on that one. What about the fact that switching companies is by fare more effective than staying at the same company salary-wise? Then it should also be a problem to employers if someone stayed at a single company for a long time as it constitutes as "missed opportunities for promotion"

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#349

Post by franga2000 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

crispyporkbites wrote: post #236

mensetmanusman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biology tends to be structurally sexist as well. The only solution is to essentially force fathers to stop working as well during this time. This is equality of outcome.

There's nothing biological about working a job. Why are women forced to stop working when they have a baby? Stop pretending our social problems are science based. And yes, there are options for them to carry on but society pretty much forces most women to stop working, due to aforementioned social pressures, structural sexist policies and expectations we put on women. If all men and women were forced to take 6 months…

> There's nothing biological about working a job. Why are women forced to stop working when they have a baby? Stop pretending our social problems are science based.

I agree with your last sentence but, like, having a child is one of the few situations where the biological "bias" really is unavoidable, at least for the first couple months.

So women are by default at a disadvantage in that situation, which makes forcing the same work absence onto the father even worse for the family's income as a whole. What we need is to make sure that that kind of prolonged absence from work doesn't impact either parent too much. At least some 100% paid parental leave would be a good start and enabling remote work, which is possible in the vast majority of jobs, would not only improve the mother's situation, but also allow the parents to freely balance who stays with the child more, increasing equality all-round.

Re: French fathers will now get 28 days of paternity leave

#350

Post by moron4hire » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

> The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) grants some mothers and fathers the ability to take 12 weeks unpaid leave and return to a protected job, depending on the size and type of the company.

Sure, you'll still have your job. And your employer might even have its own leave program to pay you for time off. But you could just never receive assignments again, so if you're working for a consulting company your billable rate will tank and then you'll get PIP'd for "lack of productivity" and then "laid off" because you can't do anything about your boss gatekeeping work away from you.

No, I can't prove this is what happened to me...