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Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

nytimes.com

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

#41

Post by narag »

untog wrote: post #22
ukj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'll be making damn sure to negotiate a pay raise based on the fact I've chosen not to have children! Where do I sign to veto my paternity leave?

Other people's children will be paying for your social security payments when you retire. You're welcome!

The only reason other people will pay for my social security is that my contribution is used to pay for previous generation's SS.

The scam is that I'm paying for their much better retirement that I will have, considering how population evolves.

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

#42

Post by narag »

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.

Old curse: I wish you sue and win.

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

#43

Post by lsd5you »

lsd5you wrote: post #34

Is this really surprising? We cannot have meritocracy and a system where some people will go missing for a year at a time (and perhaps come back with completely different motivations). There is a fundamental mismatch, and as much as some people want to frame careers as lifestyle and entitlement, the primary purpose is to get things done and produce value. The situation is even more stark for smaller companies, many o…

Rather than merely downvoting perhaps people can actually try to argue the point and answer the difficult questions. What are the unintended consequences of this kind of legislation? Should the domain of women just be in big companies and government? What is the relative cost of losing jobs due to pregnancy (with some compensation from the government) vs not being hired for certain jobs in the first place. Do we end up favoring the less law abiding managers with more legislation? I believe so and indeed for this kind of morally dubious individual it makes sense to promote these kind of unenforceable laws.

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

#44

Post by sokoloff »

jonathankoren wrote: post #40
wincy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife thinks this is a terrible idea, why should she suffer through my depressed wages to pay for two income families to be subsidized to having dual leave for children? This leave doesn’t come for free. Why should she pay for that when she chooses not to work?

What? It’s paid leave. You get your whole salary, but you don’t come to work.

Yes, and where do you imagine the money comes from?

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

#45

Post by chongli »

dmayle wrote: post #33
chongli wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to make it mandatory leave. How do you accomplish that without violating the right to privacy? If a man keeps coming into work and his partner is pregnant, nobody has to know.

A woman doesn't have that possibility, so enabling that also encourages discrimination.

I'm aware of that. This is a case where one right is in conflict with another. There's no good answer. One group of people is going to lose and another is going to win.

The disadvantage women have is that they can't hide a pregnancy forever. Men can go to extreme lengths to hide their relationships. Although rare, it is not unheard of for a man to have two families at the same time, each one hidden from the other, and maintain this state of affairs for years before getting caught (otherwise we'd never hear about it).

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

#46

Post by CryoLogic »

Pregnant employees are undoubtably less of an investment for the company when you consider paid leave. In fact the company might actually lose money on you.

This is a lot different than racial, sex, or age discrimination as a result of social bias or stereotypes.

So it makes sense there is discrimination from companies and managers - especially competitive companies where the managers are paid based on their team performance. In a truly capitalist market you would rarely hire someone at risk of becoming pregnant.

That leaves me to believe the only good solution is some type of mandatory leave for both men and women. Rather than trying to avoid the discrimination (via penalties, laws, etc.), force an equal leave rights for men and women so the companies no longer have to consider a particular gender over the other.

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

#47

Post by hotdog97 »

tinbad wrote: post #14

Personally experienced it. Wife worked at Google, had always positive performance reviews. Come pregnancy time she informed her manager, 3 days later they put her on a performance improvement plan. It didn't take long for them to realize they were making a big mistake, risking an expensive lawsuit so they let it go and let her have her paid 12 month leave. After returning she got the choice to do the PIP or take seve…

How many days/months/years between a) joining the company and b) informing of the pregnancy?

I know the law doesn't care, but I care. There's a difference between informing your manager one month after you're hired that you're pregnant (been there, felt totally fooled - as the manager, that is) and will need to take time off quite soon, and doing it like a year or so later.

The "always positive performance reviews" bit implies some sizeable amount of time before the announcement, which is why I'm asking.

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

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Geeek wrote: post #24
untog wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would fathers have biological pressure to spend less time with their children? I'd take five years paternity leave if I could get it.

Fathers can’t breastfeed.

Fathers can definitely formula feed. Even if mom is pumping, getting the milk into the baby is non trivial.

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

#49

Post by seanmcdirmid »

endtime wrote: post #15
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…

Google gives 12 weeks of gender neutral baby bonding time (on top of physical recovery time, for birth moms). Andcdotally (sample size between 5 and 10), men do take less time off than women, but not due to any kind of pressure. With both of my wife's pregnancies I took six weeks, by which time I really wanted to go back to the office so I could just sit quietly all day.

This. Going back to work is kind of a vacation after the first 6 weeks of having a baby. Heck, I’m currently a stay at home dad for my 18 month old while my wife works, and I often think she has it a bit easier :).

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

#50

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ukj wrote: post #23
coldtea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, businesses and societies could leave that as a courtesy to just those that did chose to have children -- a group of people that every society that cares about sustaining itself forward should encourage and respect.

Sure. Everybody likes grand gestures. Nobody likes paying for them. As a social responsibility it's not on private businesses to cover the cost. Pay for it through taxation. Until then - my choice is a competitive advantage.

Many countries have maternity leave as a payroll tax (for both genders). Even China has this.
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