Comment by amscanne | Hacker News Reader

Comment by amscanne | Hacker News Reader

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It’s worth noting that the 55% is capped at the equivalent ~29k/yr, and the 33% is capped at ~17k/yr.

Many employers will top off to 80% or 100% for some period of time, but I don’t know of any companies that do 18 months.

> Interestingly, often you hear about people getting in at businesses because "they had a temp opening because of a mat-leave!". This works a lot like an internship, where the employer gets to test out a potential employee while not committing to them since the person on leave will be back on a specific date. Great way to get experience and networking for young people.

You’re failing to articulate the down side of this. Both as a direct consequence (backfill) and indirect consequence (not wanting FTEs that can disappear for multiple 18 month periods with no recourse), there are far more recurring contract-only positions.

I know multiple people that are stuck in perpetually-renewed annual contracts, no security and no benefits. At least two of those cases started as backfill, and as you note.. they did a good enough job that the employer wanted them to stay. But why would they actually risk hiring young women of child bearing age?

(Just to cut off the obvious criticism, several of the people that I’m aware of actually work for the government, directly and indirectly. Canada has a big public sector.)

> But why would they actually risk hiring young women of child bearing age?

Why would they risk hiring young women, regardless? With mandatory parental leave some of the risk of absenteeism shifts to men, which means women are comparatively less of an absentee risk. Likewise, the costs (onboarding, insurance, etc) are also shared across the sexes which makes women comparatively less costly to hire.

Whether society is overall better off is a different question. And whether women come out ahead is still ultimately an empirical question. But "gotcha" arguments about how the unintended consequences of such well meaning policies will have the opposite effect aren't very persuasive to me.

How is it the opposite effect? I’m merely saying that such well-meaning polices can have other consequences. Perhaps it’s still beneficial to society overall but I don’t like to pretend that we can get something for nothing.

In general, I’d like to think we could define generous parental leave policies that a) don’t achieve their ends by forcing consequences onto businesses and the labor market, b) don’t tie parental benefits to insurable earnings.

Seriously how messed up is (b)? Sorry, you had a hard time holding down a job last year, so we’re going to give you much less than the person who doesn’t need it.

Yeah, except they have nationalized health care.

Much different bucket than America's contracts without bennies.

Yes. But employers still generally provide dental and drug coverage.

I don't know anyone who has been bankrupted by an emergency dental surgery. I'm sure they exist, but generally dental in Canada is something you can pay for out of pocket without costs being ridiculous.

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