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The problems are:

1. Society expects women to do this work, and devalues men who do it. This means that mothers are often left responsible for children, and thus they lose out compared to men (or women who choose not to have children, or haven't yet). We're effectively punishing women for continuing our species.

2. Without these sort of support structures in place, managers will look at women as a liability; "but what if she has a kid and then she has to miss work all the time?"

Your argument is basically "these women aren't as dedicated, or otherwise they wouldn't have had kids". The reality is that having children is important, and women specifically shouldn't have to look at having children as the end of their career, or at least their career advancement, because Amazon refuses to provide something which other companies already do.

Essentially this is an Amazon problem because it's only a liability at companies who don't provide this sort of opportunity, which other companies do. Amazon is basically saying "We don't care about what women have to deal with, that's your problem not ours" and talented women are going to learn that lesson and go elsewhere where neither they nor their spouses have to make those sacrifices.

>The reality is that having children is important, and women specifically shouldn't have to look at having children as the end of their career, or at least their career advancement

Why?

Because sacrificing the family unit at the altar of corporate capitalism probably isn't the right thing to do?

Daycare while both parents work on their careers all year is the family unit?

Yeah, honestly amazed that somebody would straight faced make the argument that not taking time off to raise your children in order to spend more time at work (which is a perfectly fine choice, I'm not arguing it's not!) is somehow sticking it to the man.

You seriously don't see why having children is important? How about the total extinction of the human race in a single generation?

Are you asking why having children is important, or why it's bad that women (and not men) often have to choose between children and career advancement?

(1) was certainly true even fairly recently. I think it is less true in the past 10 years at least.

> women specifically shouldn't have to look at having children as the end of their career, or at least their career advancement

Why not? All choices have consequences. Nobody can really "have it all." I (a male) have definitely made work choices that limited my income and advancement so I could have more time to spend on things involving kids and family.

"Women specifically"

Childcare doesn't just affect women.

Its badly worded. The idea is that men and women should both be affected by having kids, and if that means less career advancement, then so be it. But the assertions is that a choice between a man and a woman to have kids shouldn't result in only the woman seeing less career advancement.

You can make this argument for and against pretty easily, I think. But I would prefer to live in a world where a woman gets months off to have and start raising a kid, and a man gets the same amount of time off to bond with their new born child. Thereby spreading the impact of having children equally across both sexes, and creating what I think would be a better world.

But what about biology? Biologically, men and women are _not_ equal in terms of giving birth and caring for a child. They're just not, and there's no changing that.

> Thereby spreading the impact of having children equally across both sexes, and creating what I think would be a better world.

What makes you think that both sexes (on average) want the same things? Is it possible that women want to spend more time with children, and men want to spend more time competing? (If "no", what would make you change your mind?)

Sure, so give both the option of maternity leave, and let the ones who want to take it do so, and others who don't, won't.

I support that. But: (i) that won't address the advantage non-parents have, (ii) different choices will still result in different/unequal "impact", if you measure it by outcomes, and (iii) women will always be hit harder, because (most) literally have to take time off (giving birth is physically harms the body) whereas men don't.

Personally, I think the best solution is (1) have generic parenthood leave (but not forced), (2) have the government pay for it, and (3) reward new parents and companies who's employees have new kids.

(1) makes it (roughly) gender-equal, (2) encourages small businesses/startups (who otherwise won't be able to afford Amazon-like benefits - a paid one-year absence is extremely impactful for a 5-person company, whereas Amazon can just statistically assume that a certain % of its workforce will be out of work at any moment), (3) equalizes the economic value of mothers, fathers and non-parents, and also incentivizes high-income, well educated, smarter and more ambitious people to have kids (assuming the rewards are proportional to taxes/salary), which most "kid-having incentive programs" fail to do (e.g. strong social security will encourage low-income families to have more kids).

I'm not sure I'm okay with the measuring by outcome. So I like #s 1 and 2, but not so sure about #3.

By rewarding a couple for having children, you are also punishing couples who choose not to have children and focus on their career. A couple shouldn't be punished because they choose to have a child, having children is human and our system should support that. But if a couple chooses to have children, they shouldn't expect to be rewarded with benefits that bring them back up to the level of a person who forwent that experience to focus on continuing to work.

If you're worried that by only offering the opportunity to benefits, that men will disproportionately turn them down while women will need to take them (because giving birth physically harms the body), then 1) that just means the benefits involved should be made to be more appealing to men as well, and 2) I'm not completely convinced that's a bad thing

Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

> you are also punishing couples who choose not to have children and focus on their career

If the society values children, that's what it should do. In particular, it should find ways to specifically reward/incentivise particularly the smart, productive, capable people who the society most wants to procreate (assuming those traits are somewhat heritable, by genes, culture or both), and who are most likely to focus on their career otherwise (because the expected opportunity cost of not focusing on career is the biggest for them).

You get what you incentivise.

I think I agree with the second part of your comment (men/women), although I'm not sure I exactly get what you're trying to say - looks like you're addressing my point (1), not (3).

It's a family issue and an economy issue. A society where only women are expected to bear the career cost of having children is a societh where half the workforce has their career growth stunted. The age where you have kids is very important careerwise. I think if you can improve women's career prospects, the effects for family income and overall economic output can be quite significant.

I don't think his argument was directed at women. It was comparing the person who throws their life away to work against someone that chooses to have a life outside of work.

Yes there's cultural context that puts more pressure on women to have a life outside of work, but anyone can choose to have a life outside of work. Shouldn't the company give the most compensation to the person that gives most of their time and energy to their work? I don't want to defend that way of life. I think having a family and life is a good thing, but some people do nothing except work and should probably get more compensation for it.

To me the problem is just that people wrap their entire self worth up into the dollar amount they make. Having a family is usually much more fulfilling than a successful career. I know lots of men and women that have made that chosen family over work and are way happier for it.

> Society expects women to do this work, and devalues men who do it

By "society", you men "women", right? The reality is that as much as men like young, fertile, nurturing women, women as well like dominant, successful men (speaking of heterosexuals at least). The so called "choreplay" doesn't lead to more sex, as it turns out. [1] (With the obvious disclaimer that it's just one not-the-most-scientific study, and there's also the other perspective of men now wanting women who earn more... my point is though, that it's not some oppressive "society" boogeyman, but pretty clear (average hetero-)sexual preferences of actual people.)

> The reality is that having children is important

Is it? For whom? Maybe for society, but probably not for Amazon. Why should then Amazon pay for it. As it turns out, Amazon can afford it, but your run-of-the-mill garage startup can't. I think that if the government/society wants to support people having children (which I think is a good idea, at least as long as we claim immigration to be a good idea), then they should also structure incentives appropriately. For example, they could pay for maternity/parental leave, and even reward companies whose employees have newborns (that would also neatly take care of the problem where incentivizing childbirth has the least effect on the smartest cohorts of the population; if the benefits are proportional to salary, you'll incentivize smart ambitious hard-working people to procreate).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/does-a-more-equa...

Women in America are fighting for a fraction of what much of the developed world already has in place with regard to things like paid maternal leave, so yes, you can think like a manager and say “why is this my problem?”, but the future seems eager to realize the importance of looking at problems like this more holistically, and to suggest workplaces don’t have a larger role in the solution feels misguided when viewed through that lens.

Also, marital status has no place in this conversation, IMHO. Any corporation that would speak to the problems of “wives” being solved by/with their “husbands” is living in the last century. You can disagree, and corporations might as well, but that argument won’t wear well with time.

And U.S. companies are historically more productive.

Actually, nations that offer much more generous maternal and paternal child leave are right in the same range of productivity as the US, with some above the US.

http://time.com/4621185/worker-productivity-countries/

I don't understand this artificial distinction between home and work. Work is not sacred ground, we can change culture in the workplace the same way we can change culture at home, why do not both?

We spend as much time at work as we do at home, you endorse sharing burdens at home, so I assume you think that equality between men and women is a good thing. So why not argue for the same culture, one that supports people regardless of their sex, in the workplace? Especially when such a vital social function, raising future generations, is concerned?

You're not convinced that this is an amazon problem, but is anything ever an amazon problem, or facebooks problem, or any other companies problem?

People are waking up to the fact, mainly educated and aware knowledge workers, that they can negotiate how they want to work just like they can negotiate and shape how they want to live. If you want to convince others that companies are paperclip AI like entities with complete disregard for the humans who work in them, then that burden is on you.

Amazon's ideal workforce seems it would be like the Eunuchs in Game of Thrones. Castrated so they can focus on their true mission.

GP's argument already does what you propose. In fact, the argument is, "Now that the workplace has changed (in inviting women to be committed workers), why hasn't the home changed yet?"

By making this issue about "Moms" getting a fair shake by getting day care support from work, there may be the consequence of prolonging child care as being solely within the mother's domain.

Exactly!

The level of productivity we could have would enormous if we just focused on cutting out inessential tasks at the source instead of the periphery. I have been trying to promote the idea of neural ablation in company forever, but my boss just keeps moving me to darker parts of the building.

> If the wives are making more money and have more prospects and opportunities for advancement over their spouse - the spouse should theoretically be willing to agree to be the one who makes the sacrifice when surprise child-related stuff pops up.

Why are we assuming all these women are co-habitating or married? I don't want to sound like I'm attacking anyone, just curious.

Colour me crazy, but it might show a bit of maturity not wanting to dedicate an unreasonable amount of time to work.

I would likely trust that person's rational more than the go-getter-at-all-costs.

What's life for, anyway?

Especially given that quantity of work does not equal quality (or even the quantity of value generated!).

Let me flip this around, If Amazon is willing to hire people who are dedicated but not as qualified, why are they paying so much to senior managers?

I as a shareholder would like to know this