Maternity leave: Is it really necessary?

[Yeekim]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

A seemingly complete list of countries and their paid maternity & paternity leave. Even Saudi Arabian and Afghanistan women are treated better on this particular issue than american mothers are.

The list is inaccurate about Estonia.

It is possible to take a pregnancy vacation 70 days before the expected birth of the child and 70 days after the birth of the child. The pregnancy vacation lasts a total of 140 days. You should start the pregnancy vacation at least 30 days before the expected birth of the child. People who are employed receive a maternity benefit. Your gynecologist gives you a document certifying the expected birth of a child, which you must present to your employer or, in case you are self-employed, directly to the Estonian Health Insurance Board.

A father has a right to be granted 10 working days unpaid childcare leave during the pregnancy leave of the mother or within two months after the birth of the child.

The parental benefit is paid to the parent that stays at home with the child (mother of father). The parental benefit is paid after the end of the maternity benefit. Together the maternity benefit and the parental benefit are paid for a period of 575 days. For example if you start your pregnancy vacation on the 2nd of January 2011, the last day that the parental benefit will be paid for is the 29th of July 2012.

Non-working parents receive the parental benefit for 18 months from childbirth. Fathers have a right to parental benefit starting from 70 days after the birth of the child.

The amount of the benefit depends on the parent’s income in the previous calendar year that is calculated on the basis of the social taxes paid in Estonia. Those who did not receive any taxable income in Estonia in the previous calendar year, receive the parental benefit according to the monthly rate of the benefit. For the year 2012 the monthly rate for parental benefit is 278.02 Euros. The maximum amount of parental benefit that is paid in one month is 2143.41 Euros (in 2012). Taxes are deducted from the parental leave.
http://euraxess.ee/incoming-researchers/family/family-benefits/birth-parental-benefit/

 

[Crezth]

source?

delivered

The gap starts out as fairly small (~3-4%) but gets progressively worse with experience (~8-11%). The bonus gap is also quite large at all levels of experience. The discrepancy, iirc, is largely due to men coming by promotions more easily than women, especially in engineering [source].

It's nice to see the difference so small from the outset (would be very nice if it was ~0%), but the discrepancy shows a gender bias that may be latent at hiring and is exacerbated by actually being in the work place. It's better than the average for college-educated people, which is something like 80% difference from the outset and 69% difference with a few years of experience (from AAUW, the website is a mess but the relevant study is from 2007), but is nevertheless worth noting.

 

[Zelig]

We should ask murderers if murder should be decriminalised.

Think they'd go for that?

Most probably result of murderers decriminalizing murder would be mass vigilante justice against murderers.

 

[Traitorfish]

How is that useful?

That's like asking people who enjoy yachting if leaves for yachting are necessary.

Does yachting generally involve squeezing a small human being out of your genitals, and then be expected to clothe and feed it? That strikes me as a not insignificant difference.

 

[Zelig]

Does yachting generally involve squeezing a small human being out of your genitals, and then be expected to clothe and feed it? That strikes me as a not insignificant difference.

My S&M yacht tours are similarly expensive and unpleasant.

 

[Old Hippy]

well only for 50% of your tourists... ... ...

 

[civ_king]

delivered

The gap starts out as fairly small (~3-4%) but gets progressively worse with experience (~8-11%). The bonus gap is also quite large at all levels of experience. The discrepancy, iirc, is largely due to men coming by promotions more easily than women, especially in engineering [source].

It's nice to see the difference so small from the outset (would be very nice if it was ~0%), but the discrepancy shows a gender bias that may be latent at hiring and is exacerbated by actually being in the work place. It's better than the average for college-educated people, which is something like 80% difference from the outset and 69% difference with a few years of experience (from AAUW, the website is a mess but the relevant study is from 2007), but is nevertheless worth noting.

Is it possible that men are simply more aggressive at hiring in terms of negotiations resulting in them getting a higher starting salary which get exacerbated by % raises?

 

[wolfigor]

delivered

The gap starts out as fairly small (~3-4%) but gets progressively worse with experience (~8-11%). The bonus gap is also quite large at all levels of experience. The discrepancy, iirc, is largely due to men coming by promotions more easily than women, especially in engineering [source].

It's nice to see the difference so small from the outset (would be very nice if it was ~0%), but the discrepancy shows a gender bias that may be latent at hiring and is exacerbated by actually being in the work place. It's better than the average for college-educated people, which is something like 80% difference from the outset and 69% difference with a few years of experience (from AAUW, the website is a mess but the relevant study is from 2007), but is nevertheless worth noting.

Again it's a statistic without any explanation of the methodology used and what they define as "engineer job"... often too wide definitions tends to compare apples to oranges.

For example in IT there are many different types of "engineer" jobs with huge differences in salary.
One example is software engineers (well paid developers) vs QA engineers (low paid testers): both are defined and engineers jobs but they require completely different academic background as well as skills.
Putting both in the same basket tends to distort any wage comparison (note: more women in QA and less in development).

 

[metatron]

Looks like the graph just added maternal leave and parental leave together which is permissable if the father doesn't take parental leave. Or in other words, the graph is accurate.

No it isn't. It very much isn't. It really deserves a special spot in our hearts as a serious contender for most wrong and misleading graph in a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

 

[vypernight]

.

Are you saying men should take no part in raising the child?

Of course now. I'm all for goings stepping up to help. It just seemed this discussion was being made by everyone except those who are affected by maternity leave the most, you know, the ones actually giving birth to the kids and then going through the physical and mental difficulties immediately afterward.

 

[Aroddo]

No it isn't. It very much isn't. It really deserves a special spot in our hearts as a serious contender for most wrong and misleading graph in a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

What really matters is the big fat zero for the land where everything is supposed to be better.

 

[G-Max]

you should just thank the job-creators for being blessed with a job in the first place.

Damn right.

As an employer, I would divide my prospective employees into 3 categories:

1) Men
2) Lesbians, women who are too old to get pregnant, and other "low-risk" females
3) Women who have a decent chance of having a baby

Obviously, I wouldn't have to worry about the first group. The second group I'd mostly treat like the first group, but if they did get pregnant, I'd give them a choice: you decide how much maternity leave you're taking, you stick to that obligation, and you don't get paid for your time off. Then, a few weeks before their leave is scheduled to begin, I start interviewing temporary replacements. The third group would be told, before being hired, what happens if they become pregnant, and I'd pay them less than other employees for the same work in order to offset the lost productivity from having to conduct interviews for their temporary replacements when I could be managing the business instead. If they accept my terms, then great! No problems.

 

[holy king]

yeah, well, that's why we have a state telling you to go freck yourself if you try that.

 

[aelf]

According to data in the article college-educated women hit their pay glass ceiling at age 39 with an average salary of $60,000, whereas men's pay stops growing at the age of 48 with an average salary of $95,000.

It also says that a lot of this has to do with job choices: "Overall, men and women gravitate toward different careers. The most popular choices for men tend to pay higher than the most popular choices for women."

When we compare men and women salaries in similar jobs and experience the pay gap is not that big: amounting to a mere 4%

Great, apparently there's roughly equal pay between the genders today if you account for the fact that women simply tend to choose lower-paying roles. It's just like how poor people are poor because of their life choices, innit?

 

[JollyRoger]

What idiocy out of perspective employers here. Three iron-clad categories based on marginal financial risk in one category? That has to be the most ass backwards way of running a business that I have ever heard.

 

[kramerfan86]

Its embarrassing we dont even force businesses to provide a week or two.

 

[Yeekim]

Great, apparently there's roughly equal pay between the genders today if you account for the fact that women simply tend to choose lower-paying roles. It's just like how poor people are poor because of their life choices, innit?

Why the sarcasm for pointing out the actual source of disparity?

 

[wolfigor]

Great, apparently there's roughly equal pay between the genders today if you account for the fact that women simply tend to choose lower-paying roles.

Like it or not that's what the numbers suggest once you compare men and women salaries in the same professional role.

As I wrote it will be interesting to analyse why that happens.
Probably it's due to a large number of factors starting from what women prefer to choose in term of studies... There is no doubt that in some university courses leading to rather well paid jobs (engineering, computer science, etc.) you find very few girls, leading to a big disparity down the line.

 

[LucyDuke]

Show of hands. How many women on these boards can or already have children? Let me rephrase that; how many women do we have on these boards? I'll make itsimpler, how many on these boards, men or women, can give birth?

Now ask THEM if the Leave is necessary, especially after having the child.

There are very very few functional-uterus owners on these boards, particularly in OT. My opinion as a potential birth-giver is not worth more than that of any of the good fathers and others who "get it".

Its embarrassing we dont even force businesses to provide a week or two.

It's way more embarrassing that there are cases where we need to.

 

[aelf]

Why the sarcasm for pointing out the actual source of disparity?

I'm just remarking on the similarity between the 'life choices' discourse and what seems to me to be an argument asserting existing gender parity. It's not a pleasant resemblance.

Like it or not that's what the numbers suggest once you compare men and women salaries in the same professional role.

As I wrote it will be interesting to analyse why that happens.
Probably it's due to a large number of factors starting from what women prefer to choose in term of studies... There is no doubt that in some university courses leading to rather well paid jobs (engineering, computer science, etc.) you find very few girls, leading to a big disparity down the line.

That would be a shallow analysis. The more interesting question is why men and women gravitate towards such different paths in our society. "Well, they made their own choices" is not a satisfactory response towards pay disparity arising from gender-driven differences in occupational choices.

PS: And an even more interesting question is why we tolerate such pay disparities between the different kinds of occupations in the first place.