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Without parental leave I might be dead

nytimes.com

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Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#181

Post by geodel »

speedgoose wrote: post #90
bko wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nevertheless, the participation of Greek women in the labour market continues to be 8-10 percent below the average of E.U. countries Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in the US (14%). Policies don't exist in a vacuum. Everything has trade offs. Until you accept that you'll never have a productive honest conversation. [0] https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p257.html

I don't understand the logic. Because Greece has some issues with its women employment rate, USA can't do anything about parental leaves? You even suggested in your initial post simple solutions for this problem, that work in other countries.

It's a damn clear logic to me. --Employers show reluctance to hire women of certain age--. It is same in India with govt's liberal policy of maternity leave, overall employment rate of Women has gone down.

Resources do not come out of thin air. Something has to happen for it to change:

1) Govt provide income to family engaged in child raising activity. -Need high level of tax base and political support to actually fund it.

2) Govt open free and quality child daycare. - Again need political support and competent administration to do it.

3) Force private employers to pay. - Only business survive are with high income and revenues. Not gonna work with conservative politics.

4) Go back to old joint family structures where grandparents stay in same home with couples and provide "free" child care. - Needless to say absolutely not gonna work. Its antithesis of progressive vision of society.

5) Keep giving examples of other countries. Useless until one look at whole societal structure and find why many other things work in USA but not in those countries.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#182

Post by bko »

KaiserPro wrote: post #114
bko wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Policy changes don't exist in a vacuum. I'm not interested in studies that show something. I'm interested in a mental model that results in employers being indifferent to hiring men or women when statistically women are much more likely to take a considerable amount of paid time off with restrictions set on replacing them. The model could be that employers are altruistic. Or that employers are dumb and don't realize…

This isn't a model. its not a study, its a metric collected from the UK for the last 20 years. The arguments for "not hiring women because they'll just go and get pregnant" have largely been settled in the UK. shared parental leave is a thing, its just what happens. Employers that don't facilitate it are punished, either by employment tribunal, or people leaving to join somewhere that does.

> This isn't a model. its not a study, its a metric collected from the UK for the last 20 years.

And absolutely nothing else changed in the UK in the last 20 years that may affect this number? Logic would tell you the disincentive exists. Looking at aggregate country data over 20 years doesn't tell you anything about a single policy.

> Employers that don't facilitate it are punished, either by employment tribunal, or people leaving to join somewhere that does.

That's a lot of employers to keep track of. In terms of people leaving for jobs that do offer paid parental leave only works for those wishing to take parental leave. If someone does not wish to have children, she would be willing to take a higher salary in lieu of a company that provides generous parental leave.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#183

Post by mindslight »

mschuster91 wrote: post #66
endisneigh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is forcing women back to work?

Reality. Way too many people only can make ends meet by both partners being full-time employed - and in some cases (such as shown by a recent Last Week Tonight episode) even that is not enough to prevent being homeless. Rents are too high, and wages are too low.

Most people being unable to afford taking even a moderate amount of time off is the deeper problem. The sustainable answer is to fix the underlying economic problems - end this trickle up financial treadmill that has caused the majority to become so poor and disempowered [0], rather than creating a patchwork of allowances for specific system-legible purposes. For example bringing it back into the emotional realm - even if there were a comfortable 12 weeks of guaranteed parental leave, that itself wouldn't help a family who had lost their baby. Nor would it help someone who had to care for a terminally ill parent, nor after losing them and needing to deal with their estate. Nevermind the myriad of unenumerable reasons someone might need months off.

[0] If you cannot afford to unilaterally walk away from employment for several months, you have no economic power regardless of your churn rate. Sorry to break it to you.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#184

Post by charcircuit »

germinalphrase wrote: post #173
charcircuit wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never worked in retail. I have only made money from programming.

Consider this discussion as an exercise in humility, that the mental model of poverty as a result of poor choice may be flawed.

I choose to hone a skill by teaching myself programming and I monetized it at an early age. Anyone can do what I did. I'm not special.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#185

Post by lovecg »

charcircuit wrote: post #123
mschuster91 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive That is one of the problems of the "cycle of poverty". Moving requires a large upfront capital investment for a moving truck or gas for your own vehicle at the very least, as well as taking time off of work for house and job hunting (since getting to your old job may be unfeasible from wherever you manage to find a home). Not to mention you'll need to pay up for a de…

>investment for a moving truck or gas for your own vehicle at the very least, as well as taking time off of work for house and job hunting There are financial instruments like loans where you can for a fee get money which you can use now and pay back later. >Are you really calling nearly 70% [1] (or, after COVID, likely more!) of Americans "irresponsible" for having less than 1000$ in savings? Yes. I don't even have…

> There are financial instruments like loans where you can for a fee get money which you can use now and pay back later.

If you’re poor your credit history is likely shot. Good luck getting good terms on that loan.

> Yes. I don't even have a job that pays well and I could quit my job and live for years if I wanted to off my savings.

It means your job in fact does pay well.

> you should have a buffer in case you can't work for whatever reason or something unexpected happens.

You should also not get sick, have an education, be born into a wealthy family. There are a lot of nonactionable “shoulds” one can throw around.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#186

Post by sofixa »

bradleyjg wrote: post #147
KaiserPro wrote: post #28

I really cant understand the logic of forcing women back into work after 2-4 weeks. Its just not beneficial for anyone. The mum is utterly frazzled. The employer gets half an employee back Society is conditioned to think that the only practical way to raise a baby is to give up on work/get live in care. now, to look at it from a "my mum managed, I don't want to undermine the american nuclear family" point of view: Ye…

Maybe we should look at why three sectors of the economy have had insane cost growth for three plus decades (housing, healthcare, education) and fix that instead of trying to band aid the negative consequences?

Even if you fix those three, no parental leave is barbaric.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#187

Post by bradleyjg »

sofixa wrote: post #186
bradleyjg wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should look at why three sectors of the economy have had insane cost growth for three plus decades (housing, healthcare, education) and fix that instead of trying to band aid the negative consequences?

Even if you fix those three, no parental leave is barbaric.

Is this kind of thing supposed to persuasive? You’ve presented no argument whatsoever. Is the idea that if use an emotionally laden term like “barbaric” you think it will browbeat people into falling into line with your opinion?

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#188

Post by charcircuit »

ashtonkem wrote: post #180
charcircuit wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is a problem and should be addressed.

Agreeing with parent here is in conflict with your original point. Your original point is that poor people are in that position because they're bad with money and make bad financial choices. Parent is asserting that it's a systemic issue that is unrelated to individual financial responsibility. These positions are incompatible.

I thought he was saying that it was a systemic issue that people were irresponsible with money.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#189

Post by ashtonkem »

TheCapn wrote: post #70

My first child is due January. I sat down with my boss about a month or so ago and told him I'm intending to take parental leave. "No problem" he said, I told him my intention was to take the full 8 weeks I'm entitled to. He didn't say anything right away to that... eventually it was more of a "...that's not typical for the guys around here" We did a bit of back and forth. (I think he went to HR to find out he can't…

It always surprises me how little companies think this through. They're willing to lose all your knowledge and damage morale over a trifling 8 weeks? Talk about penny wise and pound foolish.

Never mind that in this labor market an open role might sit unfilled for more than 8 weeks!

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#190

Post by ashtonkem »

bko wrote: post #7

I believe parental leave should be provided, but I don't see how anyone expects employers to shoulder the burden of providing paid parental (in reality maternity) leave without an implicit bias towards hiring men (or at least paying women less). You can provide the same benefit to men and women, but let's be honest, even when available most men take only a fraction of the allowed time. I guess you can force people to…

> Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. There's no clear solutions

Ah, the dark side of American exceptionalism. "Other countries do it" is absolutely an answer. We could, if we wanted to, peruse our way through the policies used in other countries and pick the one that best fits Americas needs and demographic situation. But that isn't possible if we put blinders on and pretend that the experience of other countries doesn’t matter.

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