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Swiss women strike for more money, time and respect

bbc.com

41–44 of 44 posts

Re: Swiss women strike for more money, time and respect

#41
post #9

> Swiss women's pensions are 37% lower than men's, primarily because women take time out from work to raise their children

And in a world where you can't both live off the man's income anymore, that's completely unfair. Forcing people to trade their future income and security to raise kids is terrible.

It you’re concerned about fairness, the “salary” received during the maternity leave should no be related to the employment you’re taking leave from (not even to the fact of being or not employed).

Re: Swiss women strike for more money, time and respect

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as any quality of life improvement program: You tax people and use the money to make things better for society.

Why do i have to help pay for your choice to have kids? I dont like kids. I like fish. Will you help pay for my aquarium?

The point of taxes is to pay for things that benefit society as a whole. Having children, especially in high income countries, is not only important but also extremely necessary. I don't like children either but I also don't want to be the last generation to inhabit the planet. And it's important that children have support early in life to be successful.

Re: Swiss women strike for more money, time and respect

#43
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of people make a choice to have children because the would like to have and raise children. I don't see how that is not the same as hobby. Its a totally voluntary activity that primarly benefits yourself and your own family and most people do it because they just want to. > Having a next generation growing up well-educated and well-fed is, in the grand scheme of things, important. That is already provided curren…

> Its a totally voluntary activity that primarly benefits yourself and your own family and most people do it because they just want to. I don't think the main beneficiary of raising children is their family. That child will one day grow into adult who will contribute to society with ideas and labour. > Outside of nationalist 'we need to have a strong population' or basic evolutionary 'human survival' concerns I reall…

I would much prefer if we didn't have plumbers and janitors and grocers and lawyers. I would much prefer if the global population was closer to 100M and we could all live comfortably without people reproducing uncontrollably.

I, for one, would prefer paying people to _not_ have children.

Re: Swiss women strike for more money, time and respect

#44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of people make a choice to have children because the would like to have and raise children. I don't see how that is not the same as hobby. Its a totally voluntary activity that primarly benefits yourself and your own family and most people do it because they just want to. > Having a next generation growing up well-educated and well-fed is, in the grand scheme of things, important. That is already provided curren…

> Its a totally voluntary activity that primarly benefits yourself and your own family and most people do it because they just want to. I don't think the main beneficiary of raising children is their family. That child will one day grow into adult who will contribute to society with ideas and labour. > Outside of nationalist 'we need to have a strong population' or basic evolutionary 'human survival' concerns I reall…

> I don't think the main beneficiary of raising children is their family. That child will one day grow into adult who will contribute to society with ideas and labour.

The waste majority of the benefit is for the family.

I personally don't need that persons specific labor as there are many people who I could pay to do these things. Less population might mean a small overall raised price for labor cost in general but that is a TINY fraction of what it would cost compared to financing peoples first 20 years (and last 20 btw).

And in terms of ideas, the chance that this one person has a significant idea that gone have effects so significant to impact my live is so hilariously small its not even worth talking about.

> But within a society, someone needs to have them.

Why?

> Because someone needs to be your waiter, your janitor, your doctor, lawyer, grocer, plumber – I mean, every activity that is provided to us is provided by someone who once was a child. Everyone we work for and with was also once a child.

Again. I'm not arguing that nobody should have children. I'm saying that its not effective for me to pay for children for 20 years in order for there to be more.

You are essentially simply arguing again that I might have to pay slightly more for labor, but again, I'm fine with that as it is a far smaller cost compared to child care.

And also immigration would be a far superior and cheaper way to increase the labor pool of society.

I don't particularly care if human population declines over the next 100 years, it doesn't impact my life at all.

> Given that both people who want and don't want children benefit of there being a society at all, and this society is made out of grown-up children, it's in society's interest to make it easier.

My argument is that the benefit I get is 100x or more smaller then the cost that I pay.

> Raising a family is great but is also a burden. The benefits however are shared with the society at large. Also for people who don't want children to be able to not have them and still enjoy the benefits, it makes sense to try to spread the burden widely among society.

You need to actual show me that the cost benefit calculation for me makes sense. You demand I pay more and you claim some benefit to me. But if you actually do the calculation you will see (and pretty much everybody who has studied this did so) that its not effective for me as an individual.

Quite simply you are asking people who don't have children to finance the live choices of people who do.

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