At this point, the male students would nod and go on about their days, and the female grad students would stick around in an increasingly panicked state to ask about that whole saving annual and sick leave thing, since their contracts don’t include leave.
I was 100% like the male students until fairly recently when my girlfriend and I started having serious conversations about having children. The conversation was something like this. her: "What does your employer offer for maternity leave?" me: "lol idk." And then I got a pretty stern look. In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back. There is zero guaranteed paid leave. It's completely shameful and it's a stone age policy compared to the rest of the Western world [1]. It's also something I think the typical HN reader hasn't spent much time thinking about so I'm glad to see this on the front page.
"Zero paid leave" is not quite true, it's left to the individual States to decide that. CA, DC, NJ, HI, NY and PR each have paid family leave. If your state isn't in that list, complain to your state government.
It's still complicated though. I took paternity leave last year in CA and it was like this: there's a 7-day waiting period, so the first week was straight PTO. Then PFL pays 55% of salary up to I think $1k/week, so you make up the difference with partial PTO. That can go on for up to 6 weeks; if memory serves I took 4 weeks total off.
All in all not terrible. I realize I'm fortunate to live in CA where there is a PFL policy, and to work for a company that's with-it enough to process these claims quickly and competently. I truly feel for others like the woman in the article.
One common view is that 4-6 weeks is, in fact, terrible.
Of course it's all trade-offs, but the US is a long ways from most similar countries in this respect, and I can see people getting frustrated with it. In many places there are reasonable options to manage a combined year of parental leave, for example.
I dunno about a long way off... what I'm seeing are medium-long amounts of time and a paltry % of your pay, and often only for mothers.
Canada for example offers 50 weeks (wow!) of 55% pay (uh oh) with a 2 week waiting period (ooo..) up to a max of $501/week (eek). Costa Rica gives women 4 months at 100% (yay!) but only 3 days for fathers (boo). Japan is 14 weeks 60%, nothing for fathers. Examples are many at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave
It's certainly one area nobody's really solved since women joined the workforce.
Sure, but you are comparing federally mandated minimums. Elsewhere in this thread there is a lot of hay being made about how your company may offer more.... The same is true here. For example, I know people whose 50 weeks in Canada has been topped up to 80%.
It's not just about pay either, but about what security (if any) someone has after maternity or paternity leave. In practice, I think you'll fund the in the U.S. This is much harder to do, not just compared to Canada, but to most of Europe.
> Sure, but you are comparing federally mandated minimums.
Which is exactly what you were talking about, so I don't see a problem. And like I said, some states go above and beyond.
> It's not just about pay either, but about what security (if any) someone has after maternity or paternity leave [...] in the U.S. this is much harder to do
Not at all, that's precisely what the federal FMLA is for. 12 weeks of job-protected leave. No payment unless covered by something else (PTO, company policy, state law, etc), but it is 3 months of job-protected leave.
Actually, when I said "there are reasonable options" I wasn't referring to federal minimums at all, but I should have made that more clear.
I know what FMLA is for, I'm saying that compared to many places, that is not much protection. You picked a couple of places out of that wikipedia page, but on the short end. What about Sweden's 13 months at 75% or so, or Englands year?
Anyway, I'm not saying one approach is wrong, as it is all trade-offs. I'm just saying that this is made much more difficult in the US than in a lot of comparable countries, and I think that is pretty uncontroversial.
I agree that it's trade-offs. UK's maternity leave - considered the gold standard by many - does indeed allow 52 weeks, but only the first 6 weeks are paid at 90%, then from week 7-39, you get a paltry £136.78/week. Weeks 40-52 are unpaid (some employers offer "enhanced benefits" that override these numbers, but now we're back to relying on employers' generosity).
Yeah, the Costa Rica case was a real bummer for me.
Just had my first child and I only managed to get 5 days from the company, they were nice enough to throw in 2 additional days to my 3 days. To at least make it a week.
There's a bit of a caveat to the women's 4 months, those 4 months start by law 1 month before the child is scheduled to be born and continue for 3 months. We would have preferred more time after the birth and less time before.
So from 4 weeks before birth to 6 weeks after, you can also get 55% of salary, up to $1,075/week. Then you can take on the additional 6 weeks of paid family leave.
Amusing to see this on the same day that Tim Cook shocks no one by coming out publicly but making headline news everywhere.
For all of the tremendous focus on so-called family values in the United States, it seems that what is usually meant has something to do with sex. If only all of that energy could be focused on serious policy problems like this one.
>It's completely shameful and it's a stone age policy compared to the rest of the Western world [1]
not that i agree with such policy. Yet logically i can see the other side of that - why encourage people to spend their time and effort during the most productive years of their life on basically their personal sideprojects - children - instead of contributing to the economy when US can "import" through immigration any kind of people they want - from toddlers to ready-made programmers to almost ready-made doctors - thus saving a lot of societal resources which otherwise would need to be spend to bring up and educate such a person (add the risk that not every child becomes a highly productive member of society and some even become a burden like go to prison). Basically the same logic why iPhone is built in and imported from China :)
Hope you are not trolling, because your assertions about the 'other side' are egregiously wrong and pseudo-logical. 1) Toddler's do contribute to economy (fertility rate, up to a point is positively correlated with economic growth). Ageing populations are bad for the economy [1], 2) Well-being and good policies are correlated and causally linked to better productivity [2].
OP's suggestion actually does make economic sense, if and only if you import enough people. I don't think any country currently import enough resourceful people to make up for the high quality they themselves can produce.
But I definitely think you could make it work. Hypothetically, not humanely.
Why? It was your choice to have a child why should your employer pay for it, and why should all your fellow employees that did not have children have to work harder to cover for you while you are on paid leave?
I think it is selfish for new parents to demand all this time off, you were hired to do a job, do it, if you can not or unwilling to because you have made a choice to make a major change in your life then i am sure someone else will be happy to get paid do to your job.
You'd hope it was because you considered your country (and the world as a whole) a community where we all help each other out, and treat each other how we'd like to be treated. The implication of "user pays" is that the rich live life basically as they always have (because costs of life events don't scale with your wage), and the poor are utterly fucked.
You may believe it's selfish for new parents to demand time off. I believe it is selfish for people who are more fortunate than others to not contribute more tax and help lift those below them when they're in need.
I believe both are selfish, I also do not believe it is any place for government to be involved.
If an employer wants to have 1 day, or 365 days off that is up to them, that is part of your compensation package you should evaluate when you agree to take a job.
Just like I believe it is a responsibility of those with money to help those with out. That does not translate in to supporting the use of government violence to forcing people to give up money, nor does that mean I support the creating of terribly inefficient government programs to manage, regulate, or dispense said benefits or money
As to the topic at hand, if a private business owner desires to offer their employee time off for child bearing more power to them, it is not the business of government however to force that on said business owner.
I imagine we will never agree on this, as it sounds like our opinions could not differ more.
To sum up with an example though: a few elections ago I voted for the political party who had stated that they would raise my taxes (in particular, the bracket I get paid in). I did so because I consider myself very fortunate to work in a clean ventilated office, and sit at a desk solving programming problems. I don't think it's because I'm hard working, or diligent, or anything like that. At least, no more so than the dude outside logging bags of concrete around
I think it's because I was lucky enough to be brought up in a culture where I "fell" into this situation (pressured to do well in high school, brought up around computers with a passionate father, taught to program when I was 10, going to uni was a no-brainer and couldn't be any other way, etc). Other people aren't so lucky, and it would be height of hubris for me to think any other way.
(edit: quick note: I live in NZ, not the US. My opinions aren't particular controversial here)
"It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.
People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint."
The problem with this argument is that if we only relied on compassion, people who fit well into community norms would be taken care of, and those people who didn't would get lesser or no services.
I think most people have no idea how much it costs to do half the things the government does, and so even if everyone was compassionate, they'd give far less money than is actually needed, even for the socially normal people.
Yes because people that do not fit into social norms are helped by government all the time....
If you believe that I have some nice beach property I think you would be interested in.
Government through out history has been the engine of discrimination. The only legal way to abuse and harm a social group you do not like is by regulatory capture. Government for hundreds of years has been used to socially engineer society they way those in power desire it to be. From Marriage laws, to who qualifies for welfare.
It is the epitome of ignorance to state that government is the best method to help those that "do not fit well into community norms"
You don't think it's mostly objective whether people are being helped? I don't care about the joy of helping nearly as much as actual help. Fuck moral credit. Actually help people. Force everyone to give instead of relying on charity from the few.
Yes, it is bullying. That's the only complaint in that quote that makes any sense.
It appears that a lot of people think it is the business of government to force that on business owners. I think you'd do better if you could justify your position instead of just flatly declaring it as if it were an objectively verifiable fact.
It is a combination of how people look at employment, and how people look at government
Many(most) people have this entitlement mentality where by government, society, employers "owe them".
Employment is simply you selling your labor to the highest bidder. Company X needs Y labor done for them, you have the ability to perform that labor so you agree to a wage where by said labor gets done.
Nothing more. It is not a "family" you are not entitled to a job, or benefits of any type.
As for government, the only function government has is to prevent aggressive actions against me and my property and to provide a peaceful method of conflict resolution (aka courts)
It is not to inject itself in to the voluntary agreements of me and my employer, or anyone else.
The job of the government is to help us make our world a better place. If the job of government was just to resolve conflict, we'd have no roads, no bridges, no public education, we'd all be working 100 hour weeks for a pittance, and the world would be a really really awful place that none of us would like to live in. To think otherwise is just foolishness.
Well then spend your own money on the "society", why are you so glad that you can force other people to spend money on your "Society". If I really had to do immoral things in order to do some measure I really wanted, like steal in order to feed myself, at least I wouldn't be super proud and tearing over it.
As a single 36 year old man with no desire to have kids,I could care less if other people have kids and feel it is their responsibility not mine to pay for their life choice of having children
> In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back.
(1) Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required
(2) The US has a robust and very expensive welfare system
(3) Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't afford to pay for children, don't have them.
FWIW most tech companies provide very generous benefits, though I'm pretty sure it's only possible because a lot of employees never take advantage of them. (Most programmers aren't having a dozen kids)
> Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required
Cool, let's just bank on the generosity of companies.
> Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't afford to pay for children, don't have them.
Did you even read the article? These people can obviously afford to have children. They can't afford to become unemployed because they had children. Short of being independently wealthy or raiding your personal savings, no one can afford to become unemployed for an extended period of time because they're raising a child.
Let's not even get into the fact that this is obviously disproportionately affecting women. I don't need to take sick leave because my wife gave birth - I don't have anything to physically recover from.
> Cool, let's just bank on the generosity of companies.
Because banking on the generosity of the government works so well for people. I'm suggesting precisely the opposite of this. Rather than everyone seeing themselves as victims maybe they should take some responsibility for their life choices.
> Short of being independently wealthy or raiding your personal savings, no one can afford to become unemployed for an extended period of time because they're raising a child.
Not true. Many women choose not to work to raise children.
> Let's not even get into the fact that this is obviously disproportionately affecting women.
Sure, where "this" means "reality". It's not a corporation's fault that women give birth and men don't.
> Cool, let's just bank on the generosity of companies.
Or, how about you think about this when finding a job, and weigh the pros and cons of various employers' benefits and policies. We don't always need top-down guidance from bureaucrats in D.C. to solve societal problems.
> Or, how about you think about this when finding a job, and weigh the pros and cons of various employers' benefits and policies
Sure, if you are in high demand you can probably do this. If you work an entry level job you won't have much leverage and since you probably can't afford to take extended time off, you may find taking care of children somewhere near impossible.
> We don't always need top-down guidance from bureaucrats in D.C. to solve societal problems.
I'm glad you qualified it with always. But a look at U.S. history shows a lot of societal problems were helped by those bureaucrats in DC and elsewhere (school segregation, voting rights, equal access to public transport, public accommodations [restaurants can't deny your service based on your race], equal opportunity employment, etc).
YOu do understand that all of the problems you say "bureaucrats in DC" solved, were infact created by bureaucrats in DC and bureaucrats in local government.
Almost the entire Civil Rights act was about ending GOVERNMENT entrenched racism and repealing laws that forced business owners to discriminate.
But hey do not let facts get in the way of irrational worship of government like it was a deity
> (3) Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't afford to pay for children, don't have them.
It's not an accident, it's merely one of the foundations of any healthy society. I'm willing to part with a bit of our collective wealth to help raise them.
The statement "i'm will to part with a little of our collective wealth" implies the belief that you have the ethical right to lay claim to any amount any persons wealth because it is all part of the "collective".
If you would have said "I'm willing to part with a little of my wealth" that would have conveyed a believe in personal property.
Most of the time, kids pay for themselves out of their future earnings and consumer behaviors. We have a stable enough civilization that we should be able to invest something now for a potential return in 18-25 years.
The children will be born whether you want them to exist or not, and regardless of whether the parents are fit to raise them. Once the kid exists, what do you intend to do with it? Ignore it and hope for the best? Or maybe coax it into some form of societal contract, wherein we all help it reach its maximum potential now, and in return, it constructively participates in the civilized economy later?
The question is really whether you believe that the inability to easily pay the costs of child-rearing, whatever they may be, dissuades people from having more children.
And if, for some reason, one generation decides to grant itself a heap of late-life benefits that will have to be paid for by future productive workers, like retirement funds, pensions, and medical care, it would really be shooting itself in the foot to slash its support for young parents and immigration. The existence of "money" notwithstanding, current consumption always has to be paid for with current production and past stockpiles. Unless there's a warehouse somewhere out there filled with stored-up services for older people, people looking to consume such services had better start thinking about who might be providing them in the future.
Everyone. It's called a community. Same people who pay for seniors and unemployment and public education and roads and bridges and national defense. Do we not live in a world where everyone deserves to be able to afford kids?
> (1) Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required
Gosh, I'm sure that's comforting to the OP.
OP: "My car's samouflange broke at 60mph and now I'm quadriplegic." cdoxsey: "Well, most samouflange-failure incidents only result in minor bruising, so everything is fine!"
I was 100% like the male students until fairly recently when my girlfriend and I started having serious conversations about having children. The conversation was something like this. her: "What does your employer offer for maternity leave?" me: "lol idk." And then I got a pretty stern look. In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back. There is zero guaranteed paid leave. It's completely shameful and it's a stone age policy compared to the rest of the Western world [1]. It's also something I think the typical HN reader hasn't spent much time thinking about so I'm glad to see this on the front page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave