Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#191

Post by giantsloth » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #180

Barrin92 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but he's asking the policy question of where the money should come from, or if government should get involved in evening out the burden. From the businesses. Paid paternal leave is already a legal mandate in just about every country. The US is very lacking in this regard.

Actually; that (From the business) is the part I don't agree with. (You're right that the US is comparatively lacking, however) As Rayiner accurately points out, children are clearly necessary from a societal point of view. Thus, it seems "most fair" for the whole society to bear that, and for it to not be unevenly distributed such that it generates perverse incentives for business owners.

Large businesses do not pay their fair share to society and therefore should incur the cost of helping pay for the people that maintain and build their business.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#192

Post by bobcostas55 » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #151

existencebox wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…

I am very much the wrong person for you to recruit in an attempt to apply the axiomatic method to discrimination laws. Discriminating against pregnant women is wrong because it's wrong, full stop.

Murder is wrong yet we don't spend infinity $ on trying to prevent it. There's a point where we go "we could spend more to prevent more murders but it's not worth it". Everything is ultimately subject to the constraints imposed by reality and therefore the economic costs and benefits related to certain behaviors. Therefore, designing policy based on willfully blind moralism is a terrible approach.

If you're not even willing to consider the idea of regulations to deal with the matter pragmatically (such as the govt stipend suggested by the person you were replying to), then the situation is just going to continue unchanged.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#193

Post by jfoutz » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

JungleGymSam wrote: post #90

tptacek wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the only reason to tell a prospective employer about your pregnancy status is to enable them to unlawfully discriminate against you based on that status.

OK but why should a company hire someone if they are almost "immediately" going to be put on paid leave? edit: Yes, downvotes will change my mind. You're all doing a wonderful job and are definitely morally superior to me and I'm unworthy of your keystrokes.

Because they are not wretched at risk analysis. They have at least a child’s understanding that humans are not machines, and there is a high variability in week to week performance, but overall the humans are a net gain.

Basically the same reasons you don’t invest in the 100% returns every year “investment opportunity”

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#194

Post by empath75 » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

JungleGymSam wrote: post #90

tptacek wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the only reason to tell a prospective employer about your pregnancy status is to enable them to unlawfully discriminate against you based on that status.

OK but why should a company hire someone if they are almost "immediately" going to be put on paid leave? edit: Yes, downvotes will change my mind. You're all doing a wonderful job and are definitely morally superior to me and I'm unworthy of your keystrokes.

I literally just did this — my wife is 9 months pregnant and I told them during the interview and was assured that my taking leave right away wouldn’t be a problem.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#195

Post by AFNobody » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:32 AM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #142

tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife interviewed at Google and was asked how she'd be able to meet the requirements of the job while taking care of young children; the discrimination persists even after pregnancy.

There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…

> We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against parents. However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that.

The policy solution is:

- A per-child negative income tax sufficient to cover the risk/impact of employer discrimination.

- Give mothers and fathers equal leave.

- Limit the compulsory work week to 50 hours for salaried (or overtime hourly) employees.

- Penalties for violating the above sufficient to convince lawyers to take the case on a speculative basis if the client has a legitimate case.

That balances out the differences between genders and parents/non-parents sufficiently that anyone with sense wouldn't take the risk.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#196

Post by icelancer » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:42 AM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #69

lovich wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to make it mandatory leave. The social pressure is still tilted towards women as care givers and men as providers so more men will end up not using the leave. If it becomes mandatory then it's just a baked in rising to every employee, _and_ will probably do better for society to have both parents get time with their children. I believe some European states solve this by having the state cover ~60% of your…

There is an alternative. We could amortize the costs of maternity leave over the entire working population. This way we get the desired outcome (companies have no financial disincentive to hire women) without creating weird forced life-decisions. That is, I'd propose we let some government pay the maternity leave, and finance it from income tax.

>> companies have no financial disincentive to hire women

This would still exist in this world. You're still down an employee. So you don't hire women or married men.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#197

Post by Buge » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #12

rednerrus wrote: post #2

One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. If I gave you the choice of two employees, one of whom would take 12 weeks of paid leave and one who would take 2 weeks of paid leave, which would you choose? If you offered both sexes 12 weeks of paid leave, you wouldn't have to make this decision.

> One of the solutions to this is matching paternity leave. One of the solutions to this is litigation, like in other countries, and burying any company that does it to the ground (including with consumer backslash and media shaming). "Matching paternity leave" doesn't solve the problem for single mothers -- and it just provides a broader target to discriminate against.

>it just provides a broader target to discriminate against.

Isn't that an improvement? If we could broaden it entirely such that everyone falls under the net of "potentially long leave taking" then effectively there would be no discrimination.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#198

Post by giantsloth » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #170

tptacek wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very much the wrong person for you to recruit in an attempt to apply the axiomatic method to discrimination laws. Discriminating against pregnant women is wrong because it's wrong, full stop.

Your statement of "recruit" is exactly the sort of misconstruction I was hoping to avoid. threatofrain got it right. This is a problem we need to address, but the solutions I've seen thus far don't take unfortunate pathologies of human psychology into account, and when we don't do that, we get very surprised at the lack of results down the line. You're more than willing to try to live in a world where you say "Becaus…

[flagged]

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#199

Post by icelancer » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

to_bpr wrote: post #87

s73v3r_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So while I'd like to force the startup to make the decision without considering this factor, is that always reasonable?" I believe it is. As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup.

>As a society, we've decided that being able to continue the population is more important than the fortunes of any particular startup. Err no. It wasn't long ago that a family could survive well on a single income with the mother at home, cars paid, schooling sorted and food on the table. Not even remotely feasible on a single income now, unless you're talking executive pay. Society has by and large chosen to abandon…

>> Not even remotely feasible on a single income now, unless you're talking executive pay.

Yes it is. Just not if you want to live in really nice cities and have a ton of stuff.

If you want to live in a suburb, commute, not own much in the way of technology, and own a house 30% of the size of what people live in now, then yeah, that's doable.

Housing costs have inflated and that's worthy of note. But so have our expectations of comfort and life, and those have outpaced earning potentials.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#200

Post by Buge » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 1:46 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #152

rocqua wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it regressive that compensation during parental leave depends on salary? Without that, women higher in the career ladder are disincentivized from taking maternity leave. Moreover, you might even get women who earn more on leave than during the job, which is simply weird.

> How is it regressive that compensation during parental leave depends on salary? People who make more money for working make more money for not working. That's literally the definition of regressive. To quote Wikipedia: "In terms of individual income and wealth, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich: there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and th…

If it's a fixed based on your salary, it would be neither regressive, nor progressive. It would be flat.

And that's assuming the government takes the money from thin air. If the government gets the money via a progressive tax, then distributes it in a flat manner, it's overall a progressive tax.