Wow, paid maternity leave??

[Balt]

If someone wants children, they'll probably have them with or without paid maternity leave. I'm not particularly fond of the idea, since it would basically require that I do someone else's work while they get paid for it and I get nothing extra for my effort.

I think we currently have 5 or 6 pregnant women that work in our office, and if they each took 6+ months paid leave our backlog would be screwed. Takes at least 6-12 months to bring a new hire up to a non-useless level, so bringing in temp replacements isn't an option either.

That being said, our employer is generous with sick leave and it can accrue to a very high amount. They are free to use that and even use advanced sick leave.

 

[nehalem256]

If I were an employer I'd find a way to offer a modest amount of maternity leave. Being that my employees would be skilled professionals I'd prefer they have fewer roadblocks in reproducing so we can combat our descent into Idiocracy.

So you would effectively be paying women more for the same work...

How progressive of you

 

[WackyDan]

Nope. My company generously (lol) offers 3 days paid for men.

My last company granted 2 or 3 weeks paternity leave.

It is about the company you choose to work for. Work for shit benefits, and that is what you get.

 

[child of wonder]

So you would effectively be paying women more for the same work...

How progressive of you

I'll type slower this time so you can understand.

If I... me, the person typing....were an employer, such as a business owner, I... me.... would voluntarily offer the benefit of maternity leave (voluntarily meaning not by force or government mandate) because BECAUSE.... I want skilled professionals to have children so they can combat the armies of low IQ mouth breathers having huge BIG litters of children subsidized by taxpayer money who will also likely end up as stupid mouth breathers so this doesn't happen:

 

[Zebo]

Holy crap! That's not paternity leave, that's welfare.

Work is a social contract between employer and employee: You work, he pays. He buys your time. No one owes you anything because you had a child. Want to take a year off? Save your money.

I think as a whole they have a more worker/family centric ethos over there. I mean eveything. Like medical care leave, retirement - but if everyone plays by same rules the employer is not losing anything since his competitor must do same. with globalism system is harder but still European firms are competitive somehow. meh dont get so uptight there are different ways of doing things besides "over-the-barrel" work or die capitalism

 

[kage69]

Some friends of my step dad, who hail from Norway, visited once and conversation shifted to their daughter. Little Ms Hotstuff had presented them with a grandchild, and it was mentioned how she gets a full year off paid for maternity.

My folks thought they were joking.

 

[highland145]

Holy crap! That's not paternity leave, that's welfare.

Work is a social contract between employer and employee: You work, he pays. He buys your time. No one owes you anything because you had a child. Want to take a year off? Save your money.

That's not such a bad plan in concept if it comes from the employee. Problem is, these things tend to shift to the employer side rather quickly and it goes from insurance to entitlement.

Shut your mouth unless you run a business.....er, wait.....


Kidding, Mike.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

How about don't have kids unless one person in the marriage can stay home and properly raise a child, rather than raising them in daycare or by the grandparents?

As a society, where would be in 100 years if we did this?

 

[highland145]

How about don't have kids unless one person in the marriage can stay home and properly raise a child, rather than raising them in daycare or by the grandparents?

And you shut your mouth, I own a daycare,...... much to my detriment.:'(

J/k partially.

 

[sze5003]

My company pays guys and woman for maternity leave. One manager I knew took off a month almost because it was his first kid. Not sure if he is back yet because I went to another team in a different building. But not sure if he also had to use some pto. My old manager said it's something to take advantage of when you have kids since it is paid.

 

[actuarial]

Is she 25% more qualified than a man? She'd have to be in order to get paid 25% more.

So offer it to men too.

 

[Whiskey16]

I think paid leave is great for the family but bullshit for the business. If you want to use more than your vacation time, you should quit your job and then look for a new one when you are ready to get back to work.

Economic and accrued job seniority and positions to be lost all to punish middle income or lower level families for daring to, have a family. Punish the children with unacceptable burdens that their parents are forced to endure in the highly regressive and amoral 'right-to-work' ideology of the USA.

I get a distinct impression that some great lack of accurate information is present from our neighbours to the south who think the private employers are mandated to directly pay the relative wages covering a legislated period of maternal/parental leave. No.

In Canada, you get 1 year mat leave. I think that is ridiculous.

Explain yourself for this denigration against a more socially constructive and stable society, while lauding the great and compounding costs imposed against your society and health. Your USA that is clearly and noncompetitively behind the curb.

For an accurate and contrasting knowledge, here is a clear and concise breakdown:

The Globe and Mail

Maternity leave basics: Canada vs. the U.S.

Maternity and parental benefits provided for the birth or adoption of a baby varies wildly from country to country. The United States is part of a very exclusive group – but not for the reasons you might suspect. It shares the spotlight with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and Lesotho as one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t mandate some type of paid maternity leave for new mothers according to a study done by McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy. In fact, when compared to its northern neighbour, the U.S. maternity leave policy is embarrassingly sparse.

Here are some of the big differences between the two countries.

Canada

The Canadian government mandates both a leave and a benefits component, the latter being administered by provincial employment insurance plans. Depending on the length of employment history and the hours worked, new mothers can take between 17 and 52 weeks of leave from their jobs. Their employers are required to accept the employees back into their jobs, or the equivalent, at the end of the mandated leave at the same rate of pay with the same employment benefits.

On top of mandating maternity leave, the government offers paid leave for
one or both parents through Canada’s employment insurance plan. A pregnant employee or new mother can take a paid maternity leave of up to 15 weeks. Either the mother or father can take 35 weeks of parental leave after the baby is born or adopted. The parents can share the leave however they choose. If eligible for the program, the benefits equal 55 per cent of the parent’s average weekly insurable wage, up to a maximum of $485 per week. For low-income families, the rate of benefits can increase to up to 80 per cent, with the same maximum of $485 per week. Employment insurance benefits are taxable in the same way as wages.

United States

In the U.S., the picture for families-to-be is very different. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) signed into law in 1993 requires employers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for several medical conditions, as well as the birth of a baby. If the mother has pre-birth complications, she may be able to take part of the leave under the medical component. Before the law was enacted, the U.S. had no laws requiring that employers provide any leave. There are still gaping holes in the FMLA, however. It exempts small employers, defined as those having fewer than 50 employees. Some states have their own version of the FMLA and have an even lower threshold for employer exemption.

..

The Bottom Line

The U.S. has one of the poorest support systems for pregnant women and new mothers in the world. The Canadian system, on the other hand, provides at least a partial ongoing income for almost a year to give families time to adjust to the new addition, as well as a guarantee of re-employment after a lengthy leave.

The USA is a relatively undeveloped and uncivilised regressive -- an outlier in this world of for more numerous civilised states. Yet most here are so ideologically uptight and ideologically dismissive to the costs for lacking paid leave that they destructively uphold an unsupportable pride in keeping their state down to the levels of Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and Lesotho...

 

[frostedflakes]

And yet despite being so "hostile" to would-be families, the US still has higher birth rates than Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe. It's almost as if it's still possible to raise a family without your employer paying you for six months while you don't work. :hmm:

 

[Whiskey16]

And yet despite being so "hostile" to would-be families, the US still has higher birth rates than Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe. It's almost as if it's still possible to raise a family without your employer paying you for six months while you don't work. :hmm:

How successfully and to what cost?

frostedflakes, thank you for supporting the OPs and my above criticism for the relative lack of civilised development in the USA. Here's a link to another map (Wikipedia - List of sovereign states and dependent territories by fertility rate), though not as damning as the OPs, yet still quite clearly distinguishes states on the globe, with the USA again strikingly distancing itself away the most developed states, and joining the lesser so.

The USA is on par with Mexico, North African states, Saudi Arabia, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Yes, in all those states you appear to argue how at ease and in successful health it is to raise a chosen larger family, as your argument being for the USA. Economic ease must be why larger families exist?

By all means hold up your patriotic pride, regardless of its cost upon your society and state.

 

[Matt1970]

I'll type slower this time so you can understand.

If I... me, the person typing....were an employer, such as a business owner, I... me.... would voluntarily offer the benefit of maternity leave (voluntarily meaning not by force or government mandate) because BECAUSE.... I want skilled professionals to have children so they can combat the armies of low IQ mouth breathers having huge BIG litters of children subsidized by taxpayer money who will also likely end up as stupid mouth breathers so this doesn't happen:

If you were a business owner who had 2 employees, one of which was about to give birth, you will now lose 1/2 your productivity for 26 weeks while continuing to have the same overhead.

Lets just continue to drive the costs of US made products up and up while we show our loyalty at the register by purchasing as much import crap as we can and blaming it all our problems on outsourcing.

 

[dullard]

The Swedes are the most generous: http://www.npr.org/blogs/babyprojec...rental-leave-the-swedes-are-the-most-generous

480 days off, 80% salary paid, split as you wish amongst the father and the mother. Once you include holidays, that is just about exactly 2 years off. From the Swedes that I've spoken with though, the father rarely takes much of it beyond the minimum. I also believe this applies to new immigrants. So, you can go there, start working and almost immediately get 2 years paid leave to tour Europe.

 

[Jeff7]

It's a maximum of 12 weeks where I work. Unpaid. If both parents are employees, they may both take time off, but as it's written, the 12 weeks is a combination - so if both are at home, the duration is only 6 weeks.
It looks like you also have to have been with the company for 12 months to be eligible to take it, and still have a job when the 12 weeks is over.
You've also got to use up all paid leave (vacation/personal/sick) before going into the unpaid leave period.
If you get back after 12 weeks, and your former position isn't available anymore, they'll try, for the next 3 months, to find something equivalent for you at the company. If that effort fails, you've lost your job.

BS. Wages declined AFTER women started entering the workforce and driving up the workforce participation rate. Simple economics 101. Increases the supply of labor, decrease its value.

Who says the size of the market has to remain static then? Is economic growth just an illusion?
If you want to say that, then everyone looking for a job right now should stop trying, immediately. If the unemployed find jobs, then they're just dragging down the value of everyone else's paying jobs.

:hmm:
Unless......unless having those people working means that they can then become more active participants in the economy, having been given more ability to inject money back into it, both in the form of immediate consumption, and with investments into stocks and bonds for the future.

Women don't ever use money, or buy things, right?

Ah, so people who don't have children should get screwed over?

Well there is the economic benefit that kids eventually provide, even to those of us without children.

Note that businesses in Canada aren't actually forced to pay for a 1 year of maternity leave. The mandatory maternity leave costs actually come from Employment Insurance, which is a governmental program. It pays up to 50 weeks (split between two parents). It ends up being equivalent to a very low salary, and it's capped.

It's up to the business to decide if they want to augment that beyond what EI provides. However, a lot of businesses do provide this, esp. in the public sector. It's a perk, like a good dental plan or whatever.

Hm...an interesting system.

 

[Drako]

LOL @ 26 weeks of paid leave.

As a small business person, why would you hire someone who could be out for half the year or more?

 

[BoberFett]

This has nothing to do with supply and demand, people arent products. Corporations are just greedy, people are just greedy.

http://web.bryant.edu/~ehu/h364proj/summ_99/armoush/page3.html

Holy fail.

 

[BoberFett]

LOL @ 26 weeks of paid leave.

As a small business person, why would you hire someone who could be out for half the year or more?

Because business is evil and you are responsible for creating a better world by going out of business.

 

[Subyman]

I don't see why a private business should foot the bill for 3 months of salary for absolutely zero return. There should be job protection, such as the person's job is secured for them when they want to come back.

Its stuff like this that is causing businesses to contract out instead of hire employees.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

That BBC link's paid paternity map is a little off... a man in China gets 7 days paid... not much, but a little bit better than nothing

 

[Veliko]

I don't see why a private business should foot the bill for 3 months of salary for absolutely zero return. There should be job protection, such as the person's job is secured for them when they want to come back.

If someone wants children, they'll probably have them with or without paid maternity leave. I'm not particularly fond of the idea, since it would basically require that I do someone else's work while they get paid for it and I get nothing extra for my effort.

The notion that people and businesses don't benefit from paid maternity leave is complete nonsense.

Whether you like it or not, people are going to have kids and offering assistance to those that do benefits society in general.

Businesses are part of society, as are all the bitter mysognostics who inhabit Internet forums. If you want to reap the benefits of society then you are going to have put with things that don't necessarily benefit you directly.

 

[nehalem256]

The notion that people and businesses don't benefit from paid maternity leave is complete nonsense.

Whether you like it or not, people are going to have kids and offering assistance to those that do benefits society in general.

Businesses are part of society, as are all the bitter mysognostics who inhabit Internet forums. If you want to reap the benefits of society then you are going to have put with things that don't necessarily benefit you directly.

Paying women not to work for a year doesn't benefit you. See below for why maternity leave fails as eugenic policy.

I'll type slower this time so you can understand.

If I... me, the person typing....were an employer, such as a business owner, I... me.... would voluntarily offer the benefit of maternity leave (voluntarily meaning not by force or government mandate) because BECAUSE.... I want skilled professionals to have children so they can combat the armies of low IQ mouth breathers having huge BIG litters of children subsidized by taxpayer money who will also likely end up as stupid mouth breathers so this doesn't happen:

I suggest you rewatch the end of Idiocracy to learn why you plan is doomed to failure.

A skilled professional having 1, 2, or maybe even 3:O children is not going to compensate for some idiot having a "huge BIG litter". Especially if the professional waits until 30 to have them instead of in her teens.

Please try learning something of eugenics before you try using it to justify giving entitlements to women.

 

[Veliko]

Paying women not to work for a year doesn't benefit you. See below for why maternity leave fails as eugenic policy.

Talking of bitter mysognostics, you're one of the biggest.