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As a fresh-out-of-college male who had no plans to start a family any time soon, I noticed a distinct quality-of-life change when my coworkers generally had families vs. when they didn't (there were some clear shifts in demographics shortly after I started my first job, arising from, essentially, chance). There was much less of a norm of being in the office past 6 or reachable in evenings/weekends, and much more of a norm of getting in at 10 (probably right after dropping off the kids for work). There was no desire to have work-provided dinner, because my coworkers wanted dinner with their families. There is probably also a less-tangible change, that people with families don't define their self-worth by their work quite as much. This trickled down into when meetings were scheduled, what expectations there were for last-minute work ahead of deadlines, whether the company did supposedly-informal events on evenings and weekends, etc., and as a result, it meant that my work-life balance was good.

I'm now skeptical of workplaces where everyone else is like me, with no family that wants them home by dinner. I don't actually think these policies will successfully incentivize anyone to start or not start families, but even if you wanted to be that cynical, there's a clear advantage in work-life balance for everyone to encourage a sizable fraction of your employees to have families. A sabbatical for single people wouldn't accomplish the same long-term effect. (I'd be specifically worried that the "hobby" would be good for the company, since I can see myself easily falling into that trap.)

That seems like a rather inefficient and convoluted way to incentivize employees without families to have a "better" work-life balance. You implied that the company was providing dinner - maybe it should start promoting a better work-life balance by not doing that.

This company was not providing dinner (because nobody would use it), but many of my friends were at companies that did (because people did use it).

You're not a parent, are you? ;)

- I seriously doubt this leave will have any bearing whatsoever on whether an employee decides to have kids. It is such a major, life changing and personal decision it is taken irrespective of incentives. Only serious constraints (no money) might negatively impact that decision. As a new parent, I was very happy to get leave from my company but I would have had kids regardless. Also I never heard of anyone having kids so they could get the 12 weeks or whatever or leave :)

- Another way to look at this is you have people that are having kids and people that are not. What can the company do to keep the former happily employed/interested in joining your company?

Yup, it seems like parent (as in parent comment, not human parent) has the causality wrong. This won't incentivize anyone to have kids. It will incentivize people to join or stay with the company if they plan on having kids in the future, though, and that's good for the bottom line.

It sounds bad for the company, due to adverse selection.

When I get to the stage in my life where I want this benefit, I'll shift over to MS or similar companies. I'll work there for a few years, take this benefit, and then shift back to a company that comps me with cash once I'm done having children.

It would be pretty silly if a 22 year old decided to work at MS for 15 years, simply to use this benefit for two children they bear at age 31 and 33.

Absolutely, I don't think that parental leave will impact someone's decision to have kids. However, giving a benefit to people who have kids without giving that same benefit to people without kids is not that different from the company saying that they want their employees to have kids. It won't actually change behavior, but it still stands out to me as a pretty opinionated stance from the employer about what behavior they want from their employees.

Parental leave is a good way to keep people with kids happy. Why shouldn't we also keep people without kids happy? Everyone deserves time to pursue passions outside of work. Some people are passionate about their families. Other people are passionate about other things. I think employers shouldn't have an opinion on which is more valid, and they should support both.

If it doesn't change behavior it's not incentivizing, that simple.

> However, giving a benefit to people who have kids without giving that same benefit to people without kids is not that different from the company saying that they want their employees to have kids. /want/ their employees to have kids means that they desire it to some degree. I am sure MS doesn't desire it, but rather indifferent. But they do desire to be a more humanitarian company and want their employees to be happier.

> Why shouldn't we also keep people without kids happy? Everyone deserves time to pursue passions outside of work. Some people are passionate about their families. Are you trying to say that because people with children have parental leave, people without children should have equivalent leaves too? That sounds a little ridiculous to me.

> Are you trying to say that because people with children have parental leave, people without children should have equivalent leaves too? That sounds a little ridiculous to me.

How so? They probably work harder (for the employer) than the ones with children but deserve less PTO?

An employer may offer free sushi and beer on Fridays. Does it mean they encourage fish and alcohol consumption? What about employees who don't consume either due to health or religious reasons, or just plain preference? Do they now deserve make-up compensation?

As a parent I never come in late and stay for dinner. This means the dinner service is an employer cost that I get no benefit from. Clearly the single people are the primary reason for this unnecessary cost to the company. I also don't drink soda and I'm not sure why my employer encourages this behavior by spending so much money on free soda everywhere. Lets nix that too!

Maybe you see what I'm getting at. The employer is just trying to accommodate and please people with various life choices for good retention and hiring rates. There's no reason that they absolutely shouldn't offer something to kid-free people only, it's just that they don't currently, probably because they don't think it will help much.

You're talking about things that cost almost nothing compared an entire year's free salary.

It might have a bearing on whether or not they want to work at MS and have kids. Too easy for engineers to just go over to another company. Policies like this give MS a leg up over the likes of Amazon.

I think it's more that they're incentivizing potential new hires that value having a family to come work for the company.

Existing employees are going to have a baby either way, in the grand scheme of things a few months aren't going to change your mind about having a child. On the other hand, all things being equal, working for Microsoft vs working for another big corp, having more time off for your kids could tip the scales in Microsoft's favor.

At the risk of being cynical, you're probably right. It's a benefit that's relevant (or potentially relevant) to many young new hires who might otherwise be somewhat skeptical of going to work for Microsoft.

You get the benefit of children in 30-40 years when you retire and those children pay your Social Security and Medicare (or whatever government programs might be equivalent wherever you are; and all this after decades of hard work by the parents), and you get the benefit of parental leave right now by not having to deal with sleep-deprived, angry zombies in your workspace. ;)

On balance, you're coming out ahead, not the new parents.

I think that sounds backwards. People decide whether they want to have babies and seek out an employer whose environment works well with that life choice. So if you as an employer see parents as typically older (therefore more experienced) and more stable than non-parents, you would provide benefits that would be attractive to those people. I am not saying this is necessarily the case for parents vs non-parents, just that some employers might see things this way and act accordingly.

On another note, I don't think it's a good idea to pretend like this is simply another in an endless variety of choices people make about their lives that can be incented one way or the other. When people have kids it tends to alter the way they see the purpose of their whole life. It's not "oh sweet, I can get a tax credit if I buy a Prius".

> it seems like people who choose not to have kids should receive similar benefits

This always comes up when this topic is being discussed. I don't understand what it is about the American psyche that makes us get so worked up about someone else (often in demonstrable need) receiving some sort of help.

I realize I'm stretching a bit here, but your opinion lives in the same realm as some other doozies we often hear:

"Why do women get special tech recruiting events??? Nobody set up a special event to recruit ME. I had to network all on my own"

"Why should my tax dollars pay for a transit system I don't use???"

"Why should inner city schools get subsidized lunches? I had to bring mine every day!"

This is why we can't (and don't) have nice things.

You seem to equate parental leave with vacation. Ask any new parent, it's anything but a vacation.

"offering parental benefits is a way to encourage people to have babies"

I'm shaking my head reading this comment.

Also please do not equate having a baby to pursuing a hobby.

Why not? It's ridiculous the sense of entitlement parents have. You're not special because you figured out how your reproductive system works and you don't deserve special benefits.

> you don't deserve special benefits.

Society feels differently, and Micorsoft here recognizes this and can use that to provide incentives to future hires and retain existing ones.

Secondly, raising kids is not a hobby, that's why they shouldn't be conflated.

And you can take your entitlement charge that you're about to level at me and shove it up your ass. I don't have kids, I won't have kids, I really kind of hate kids, but even I can see it's not a god damn hobby.

It is, in fact, a hobby; a selfish, narcissistic, and extremely expensive one.

I think you might be projecting a bit.

> "It's ridiculous the sense of entitlement parents have."

It's not a sense of entitlement that drives these kinds of changes. It's a recognition that child rearing is an important societal activity, and that in a modern, privileged, civilized society we should not have workplace policies in place that are hostile toward parents. Ageing populations are a real and present threat to many first world countries. In most western countries this is recognized at the governmental level with leave schemes, childcare subsidies etc.

This is also in response to changes in work patterns. In the 50s it was very uncommon for both mother and father to be working. Now the opposite is the case. Shouldn't society then move to restore the balance in a sense by applying what you call "special benefits" to parents?

The entitlement was evident in his footnote "please do not equate having a baby to pursuing a hobby."

I should have been more specific that parents should not be entitled to special benefits at work. It would make sense for a government program to subsidize child rearing to some extent.

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I've always viewed benefits like this as a way for the company to incentivize and/or reward certain behavior from employees. Offering a 401(k) match is a way to encourage employees to save for retirement.

By that logic, offering family insurance benefits is a way to encourage people to have families. That's always seemed a bit weird to me because it seems inappropriate for a company to be involved in something so personal. It seems reasonable for the government to say, "we want more people to have families for the greater good" but it seems strange for companies to take it upon themselves to do that.

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Some things don't benefit you personally and are still good things.

I guess the difference, as you can see from the threads here, is that many people seem to think that extended paid parental leave is something that civilized governments are obligated to deliver (through employers). This is a fairly modern notion. Sabbaticals, not so much. I'm not sure many people are really viewing this through the lens of incentives though.

I actually agree that, from a rationalist perspective, offering everyone periodic sabbaticals with a lot of scheduling flexibility is a nice thought. (Not quite the same thing--but I've always thought Intel's sabbaticals were a nice practice.)

> I've always viewed benefits like this as a way for the company to incentivize and/or reward certain behavior from employees. Offering a 401(k) match is a way to encourage employees to save for retirement.

I'll accept that.

> By that logic, offering parental benefits is a way to encourage people to have babies.

This does not follow. You are assuming that if a company offers something that might incentivize people to do X it must be because the company wants to incentivize X. You are overlooking that it could be they want incentivize Y or disincentivize Z (so both) and this also happens to incentivize X for some people.

I don't think there are many people who would not otherwise have had children who will decide to go ahead and have a baby if their company offers better parental leave. There are probably many people, though, who have decided they want children, and might consider leaving their company for one with better parental leave policies, and so I think it is more likely that this is about keeping employees rather than influencing their reproductive behavior.

> it seems like people who choose not to have kids should receive similar benefits.

They do. In Microsofts case they recieve 12 weeks for parental leave, with mothers getting an additional 8 weeks. All Microsoft employees get that.

That some choose not to exercise those benifits does not mean they do not have them.

You're being deliberately obtuse. They're being given a benefit that they have no intention of using which, at some level, is less personally valuable than a hypothetical alternative company-wide benefits package. Nothing against this plan personally but, like all benefit plans, it makes certain assumptions about typical preferences. (e.g. all other things being equal, a generic sabbatical plan that everyone could use would presumably be less generous than one applying only to a subset.)

No I'm not being obtuse, I am being very serious. Every employee is given the same benefits package, they can use it or not.

If someone elects not to use the 401k matching should they get the cash equviant? Your position is they should because they chose not to exercise the agreed upon package.

Or if someone gets into an accident and health insurance covers $100k of his medical bills, it's only fair that you, who was not in an accident, get $100k in cash because they got a benefit you didn't.

Every Microsoft employee gets the same benefits package. It is already fair. You personally may not hold parts of that package very important but that only influences how much weight that part of the compensation has when choosing other oportunities.

Also, Microsoft has a sabbatical policy, it's a separate thing. But you haven't let facts get in your way up until now, so why start.