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Comment by thefz | Hacker News Reader

I live in a country with paid maternal leave and paid paternal leave up to an extent.

I've always been in favor of it but since I have joined the workforce I'm kinda on the fence if not against it.

The amount of people exploiting it is enormous (at least where I live). I have seen some time up precisely their pregnancies to maximize time off work, but still getting paid 100%. Others getting pregnancy leave while planning to resign the day they have to come back to work, sucking up all that their employer has to give and then leaving him.

Employer bias exists for a reason, and it is precisely the existence of this behavior.

The ways in which a system like this can be exploited, in my opinion, are countless and far outweigh the benefits. And since maternal leave is paid for with tax money, I as a taxpayer, am against use of public money to fund private activities.

If anyone, be a male or a female has no mean of having a family due to poor financial planning, it is not my problem to solve.

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>If anyone, be a male or a female has no mean of having a family due to poor financial planning

I think this is pretty telling of your attitude to the whole thing. In a time where virtually all developed countries face a demographic crisis in the coming decades, where record numbers of young people cite "financial reasons" for not starting a family, you still think that if somebody is poor then the cause is "poor financial planning".

Maybe the time has come to flatten the growth curve. Infinite growth in a system of finite resources is unfeasible.

Let's face the fact that pronatalist agendas have been pushed by the major religions for centuries in order to better control the population.

Ah, eugenics by wealth. We've seen it before, here it is again.

The curve has beyond been flattened already. It's nosediving. We're below replacement fertility and falling. I don't think incenctivising >2.1 fertility is being "protonatalist". And mind, this is coming from someone very much opposed to unrestrained growth capitalism. A proponent of "degrowth" if you will.

I'm not sure why you have negative points. Maybe because you meant in first world countries[0][1] and didn't state it explicitly? The world is barely above replacement rate (i.e. there is population growth) and OECD members are below (population decline).

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?end=2018&lo...

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?end=2018&lo...

These are the best graphs I saw all day. Thank you.

Pro-natalist, as in promoting births just for the sake of it.

> . I don't think incenctivising >2.1 fertility is being "protonatalist".

Yes it is, because you are incentivising births just to float above an arbitrary level.

> In a time where virtually all developed countries face a demographic crisis in the coming decades

I don't see how this is a problem if we have immigration. We should support immigration from high population growth areas of the planet to low population growth not add more population to the planet.

Adding more people to planet and causing climate for next generation is way worse than not providing paid leave.

can someone address this instead of downvoting. It makes sense in my head, lol.

Some first world people don't like third world people.

Wait - the whole point of the government program was to assist families. Some families take them up, and suddenly its a problem?

"Exploited" and "used for the intended purpose" are not interchangeable phrases.

Having children is not some accident nor disease that must be insured against. The purpose of such government programs is not to alleviate misfortune. There seems to be some deep misunderstanding of the issue here.

> "Exploited" and "used for the intended purpose" are not interchangeable phrases.

Which is, precisely, the issue at hand here.

I think when mentioning exploitation, this was in relation to the precisely timed pregnancy to gain full benefits, or leaving directly after the benefits period ended. Not necessarily the use of the program, but the “playing the system” aspect.

...and you would recommend they choose a worse setup? Don't we all use programs (e.g. buy insurance then go see the dentist) routinely like this?

There are numerous differences from a tax-funded maternity program and insurance. (the hope of) free markets determining insurance prices, ability to opt in or out of specific coverage, the source of funding to name a few.

The point isn't to trust people not to scam the system (because just like banks have found another way to abuse (now commercial) mortgage backed securities (CMBS)[0], market dynamics can be applied to people finding a way to abuse the system), but to design such a system best we can that gives the benefits to those the program is intended for, and to prevent abuse from malicious actors.

[0]: https://www.propublica.org/article/whistleblower-wall-street...

A better example is a 401(k) match. I make contributions that maximize the amount my company matches. My benefits agreement says if I contribute up to $X I’ll get $Y. If I precisely contribute $X am I screwing my employer? It feels almost like I am gaming the system!

I take all the vacation days I’m promised, too. I precisely time it so I use every last day. Screwing my employer again!

Ya, but drawing maternity leave and forcing your employer to keep your position available to you upon the end of the leave and then telling them at the last minute that you don't plan on coming back is a little bit different. More akin to using sick days when you aren't sick, imo.

But government programs could fix this by paying maternity leave whether or not the mother plans to go back to work. Then they could be open with their employer that they don't plan on coming back.

It can take a year of trying to conceive to end up pregnant even for couples without any issues. There's no way anyone can time it that accurately.

Planning on not returning, but not telling your employer so they keep paying you on maternity leave is shady as fuck.

A good reason the leave pay should be provided by the state.

Like any group-coverage program I agree, it should be a state or federal promise. As the OP says in the title and the article.

Your two examples are just showing parental leave being used, not abused.

The amount of days allotted are still the same. Same goes for people quitting right after: the allotted days are the same, independently of quitting or not. What's your expectation, that a new mom leaves work and stay unemployed the day her newborn comes, setting a lot of uncertainty for the future, instead of an employer paying for it? Even socially wise, i would always say the mom should be taking that parental leave.

And that overlooks the other side of things too: In the first case, the person might have had some issues with the newborn. My daughter had problems breastfeeding for basically 3 months, is this possibility accounted in the "maximizing time off"? Yeah the parent's priority now is the newborn, I'd argue that a company should promote that at all time, to have better human beings.

The last case: what if the person had a change of mind when the newborn and decided it wanted to be a stay-home mom or dad to be fully dedicated? Or maybe they want a part time remote job, so they could afford having kids with them at all time, without resorting to child care.

Granted that you could make points for parental leave being too long (sure!), that can be balanced by law, but the simple fact that it's used it's not abuse.

There is a benefit to society replenishing its population and a benefit to the individual not to have to think about income loss or worry about their work status upon return.

Perhaps it would make sense to have policies like when your employer sends you off for schooling, you are expected to stay for x-months and if not you owe them.

So a guy goes on paternity leave, resigns after coming back, he owes the co. some amount discouraging this practice? If the move is worth it, then they would afford the penalty. Kind of like withdrawing from retirement before maturity.

I wish some policies like this would exist, but sadly in a country of heavy catholic descent, it all falls under the "life is sacred" umbrella.

I'd strongly argue you want to deplete reserves of foreign immigrants that want to come fill in any population deficit you have before you start subsidizing reproduction. Humanity as a whole is still growing, that population growth is largely limited to poorer nations, and as such it just doesn't make financial sense for nations to be paying people to have kids (and bear the associated stresses, complications, and expenses from having often full time laborers also burdened with trying to raise a family) when there are billions in poverty that immigration could uplift.

It also has historical context. Colonization around the world happened on the back of permissive immigration - when early America needed labor it didn't pay every family to have more kids, it brought the poor over from Europe with the promise of opportunity. And while the investments needed to make a worker productive are much higher today than back then it applies to both a natural born or immigrant citizen all the same.

A lot of it is cultural though. The unrealistic expectations heaped on most western working class peoples to both have a successful career and somehow produce a well adjusted functional progeny feels to me like the same kind of fantastical unrealism of the titular American Dream - where everyone could have two cars and a separated house anywhere, drive everywhere, and that scaling that up to hundreds of millions was both practical and optimal. In practice, no, very few members of the working poor are skilled in parenting enough to somehow magically balance 40 hours a week between two parents on subsistence income with raising children effectively. Perpetuating that lie causes real harm to everyone involved. Its the same kind of doublethink that keeps global warming off the agenda as a legitimate threat - the need to protect culturally established norms even if they cause real harm to perpetuate.

Most advanced economies are experiencing internal ZPG. Many are unused to lots of foreigners coming in. Many are relatively overpopulated. It would also dilute local culture and for small countries it would certainly overwhelm the local culture. On the other hand they need to remain a “going culture”, i.e. not dying out.

Korea’s pop nosedive should not be seen as the antidote for badly planned demographics elsewhere.

Sure, if they want to that’s okay but they certainly aren’t obliged to.

Let’s imagine what would happen to Bhutan if they opened their doors to their neighbors.

If you follow your logic through to completion, you will see it leads to multiple issues.

I'm not saying that immigration is bad.

However, having a country advocate zero childbirths - and trying to keep population up entirely foreign migration is a recipe for disaster.

Its not about advocating for. That would be paying people to not reproduce, which is another perverse incentive.

Presently a relatively small fraction of western populaces can afford children without assistance. Trying to artificially prop up birthrates is putting a bandaid on a gushing wound of wealth inequality. If productive gains weren't being realized by capital to such an absurd degree more people would be able to afford doing zero-revenue labor like raising children for longer periods of time.

What you described is a Ponzi scheme.

In Australia, we call it the population (or migration) Ponzi.

Another way to look at it is - you're essentially borrowing from your future generations, in order to fund your current lifestyle.

Those future generations are going to be the ones looking after you in your old age (through being taxpayers to provide services - or in some cultures maybe even literally being the ones to house/care for your), and also because that's how your culture/society continues. Society/culture is more than just a input/output machine that eats, s*hits and sleeps.

I don't particularly like the arts, but I understand that as a whole, our government funds things like that for the betterment of society.

I am fortunate I don't have any major disabilities - but if I did, I know my society looks after those less fortunate (or I hope they do).

> If anyone, be a male or a female has no mean of having a family due to poor financial planning, it is not my problem to solve.

I have a lot of trouble believing that people would time their pregnancies specifically to screw over their employer. That's so outrageous to me that it casts a lot of doubt, in my mind, to your entire reply.

Of course: if any business has poor relationships with their employees, it is not my problem to solve.

thefz didn't say they timed pregnancies to screw over their employer but to maximize time off work.

> I have seen some time up precisely their pregnancies to maximize time off work, but still getting paid 100%. Others getting pregnancy leave while planning to resign the day they have to come back to work, sucking up all that their employer has to give and then leaving him.

I think you're being pedantic; the entire tone of @thefz's comment is that employees time their pregnancies to maximize time off work and effectively screw over their employer

> I think you're being pedantic

But I don't think it is pedantic to point out there is a difference between

1. Maximizing your time off work, even if it screws over your employer.

and

2. Timing your pregnancy in order to screw over your employer.

You're being disingenuous by making it sound like GP is arguing that they are doing it in order to intentionally screw over their employer, when clearly GP is saying they are doing it to maximize their paid leave, which also screws over their employer.

The premise of 'screwing over their employer' is what is broken here. This is the narcissistic viewpoint of a small business owner who sees dollars already counted as his own going into someone else's pocket. No well managed business is running at such a tight margin that it can't afford to meet its obligations to its employees. The employer is only getting screwed in the sense that the owner can't buy a new boat this year.

Precisely! Thanks.

People want free money. If the system allows them to get money and inconvenience their employer or do neither they will overwhelmingly do it. I can’t be the only person to note that teachers are much more likely to have children during the school year than over the summer.

I think it's less defensible that people want free money than it is than corporations want free money. Because fundamentally lots of people don't want to live off handouts.

It's kinda telling that economics treats trained workers as something that springs into existence unbidden. While raising children is mere 'leisure' and government funded education is dead weight loss.

> It's kinda telling that economics treats trained workers as something that springs into existence unbidden. While raising children is mere 'leisure' and government funded education is dead weight loss.

Every word above is false. Gary Becker’s economics of the family has many, many flaws but assuming children happen by accident is not among them. Leisure is not “mere” in economics. It’s everything that’s not work. It’s what work is for. The point is not the production; it's the consumption. If we could do the latter without the former sustainably that would be paradise. There are none, zero, no economists who think government education is dead weight loss. Even Bryan Caplan of The Case Against Education thinks it’s at least 30% human capital building and it’s glaringly obvious after the past few weeks that the child minding function of school is enormously valuable.

I work off the following. What drives policy is the core. Everything else is mere words.

In practice economists assign a value of zero to child rearing. Because simply economists hate reasoning about externalities.

I'd be interested in seeing the data on this. My wife's a teacher, and in her school district there is no maturnity leave, you need to use sick time. So we were trying for the opposite - to make sure our child is born during the summer.

365.25 days in a year, roughly 80 days of summer, seems like a solid bet that they'll likely give birth during the school year just by chance alone, no?

Believe it or not, when after a certain period of time one gets only 70% pay but if they fall pregnant again the system resets and they get to be home with 100% pay for a year or so, someone is going to get out the calculator.

Witnessed this with my eyes many times.

Let's get out the calculator and see what it costs in time and money to raise a child for 18 years and then reconsider whether someone would take on the debt of having a kid that they didn't already plan on having to get some paid time off.

I'm going to guess that you:

1. Don't have kids 2. Are a male (I'm male as well)

Having kids is a big decision. (I'm lucky enough to have two so far).

We (wife and I) have had to make a lot of sacrifices, both financially and at a family/career/personal level. We are lucky that we both have reasonably good jobs.

However, being pregnant is an absolute b*tch, and seeing what my wife went through, and what some of the other mums in our parents group went through - I am very dubious anybody intentionally gets pregnant only to get a few extra weeks/months of leave.

If you're a guy I suspect we probably can't know how bad it is. Let's just say that tearing or being cut down there isn't fun, and for many women it can have lasting impact on your body.

For both of you it upends your entire life - and you're on the hook for the next 18 years (at least). And not just financially, but you need to actually spend time with them - feeding them, changing nappies, reading books, playing games, looking after them when they're sick, taking then to school every day, teaching them, ferrying them to activities etc.

I have zero regrets - but it really irks me when immature people start commenting about how providing things like parental leave will encourage people to "abuse the system".

Those people were likely already going to have kids anyway, so I don't see why we as a society shouldn't support them - unless we want to deal with the demographic and sociological implications that comes with a rapidly aging population and no young people.

Just so you know, I was motivated to have an articulated discussion with you until you implied that having two kids made you mature, and called me immature.

It does exist. I personally know a person who did that, on purpose, and got away with close to 3 years of contigus maternity leave before quitting their job.

That being said, this is ONE person I know, I have no hard data or anything, but I'm pretty sure it's a minority.

They absolutely will time them to maximize benefits. I commented on how teachers time pregnancies so their leave is adjacent to summer break.

Also pregnancies are delayed until after a pay increase, so leave pay is higher.

So because you don’t know who’s done it, you don’t believe it? I know several who have openly admitted to it.

> I have seen some time up precisely their pregnancies to maximize time off work,

How on earth can you know that?

'I have seen' - excuse me, but what? Are you going to tell us that you work at a company where people's reproductive plans are common water cooler discussion? Do you work a tech company? I'd find that mind-boggling.

'timing a pregnancy'? Only someone who's never tried to get pregnant could take that seriously.

My wife and I tried (and succeeded) to get my leave period to overlap with the winter holiday (during which my office is closed). I've had conversations with friends on academic schedules attempting similar things.

Obviously, plans often don't survive first contact with reproductive biology, but sometimes they do, like in my case.

> 'I have seen' - excuse me, but what? Are you going to tell us that you work at a company where people's reproductive plans are common water cooler discussion?

No, but sort of, yes. I have witnessed many cases in which some employees practically disappeared, to the point of having to hire others to substitute them, for years.

Timing a pregnancy is not as uncommon as you'd think.

> Timing a pregnancy is not as uncommon as you'd think.

I'll take a chance and guess your gender. Timing a pregnancy is not as easy as you think.

We had no trouble choosing the month of our three boy's birthdays. Your mileage may vary of course.

Oh my god. Are. You. Assuming. My. Gender.

Being a former teacher, absolutely yes. Reproductive plans, and how to fit them into school year, are topics of conversation and informal “coaching.”

You are entitled to your opinion. Be aware that it’s only an opinion, though. The only way to objectively talk about benefits of policies is by using research and studies, not relying on anecdotal incidences of “waste”.

Despite people “exploiting” the system as you say, over the entire population it provides more benefits to society than it costs.

I noticed that usually Americans are in favor of family planning and family support policies like these. And I, as an European, have seen the dark side of it and am becoming a bit wary of flat out, all trust social policies like these. "who cares, in the long run the benefits will outweigh the costs". Not my opinion. I might be wrong, though.

I have seen Europeans spit on people in my country and treat them badly. I as an American have seen it and have become wary of trusting Europeans. I saw it with my own eyes so therefore all Europeans are bad. I might be wrong, but let's be honest I don't actually think I am, my anecdotes are better than your data.

That's you, that's how you think.

Well to be honest from my very first post I state mine to be a personal experience, not raw global scale data followed by any somewhat serious study; and secondly, if you look at this thread almost every other reply is a personal account of some sort.

I don't imply to be right, I'm just stating my opinion.

Well in an argument about Nationwide social policies your opinions and anecdotes are perfectly irrelevant and useless.

If Americans support policies like these then why don't we have them?

Marijuana legalization polls well but it’s still a controlled substance that can get you jailed in most parts of the US. Try to find out why.

>If anyone, be a male or a female has no mean of having a family due to poor financial planning, it is not my problem to solve.

But the child's future problem will become yours, then, unless you somehow manage to escape society.

I agree, instead of targeted support for parents we should just give everyone the same basic standard of living so they can choose to support themselves independently if they choose to procreate.

Edit: I can understand the notion that some want to maximise their time away from their employer, but the idea that birthing and caring for a baby is time off work is somewhat naive :)

Not sure what country you live in, but’s it pretty hard to game this. You have a fixed number of weeks. And it’s pretty hard to fake having a baby.

People should get the same benefits even if they plan to quit after, which would address the issue of people quitting after.

If you’re against social insurance as a whole though, then opposition to maternity leave makes sense.

The worldview described in the comment and by people who upvote is something that I'm not jealous of. But as this is not a moral lecture about gender equality, how important decent childhood is or whether the society would be better without reproducing, I'd just like to point out one immediate bias/flaw you express:

The parents who can abuse parental leave are quite privileged. -Have a reliable partner who wants to have children with you -Have required fertiliry to "time" pregnancy -Work for a stable company (rules out small business owners, self employment...) -Be employed in the first place

How many % you think this would represent of the women aged 20-35 in your country? Do you believe that these women will contribute less taxes to the society than society uses on them? Are these tax payers net-negative part of society?

At least where I live, the employer only has to send in tax forms during the parental leave. They don't pay the salary - the state does.

So, if your employee quits at the end of their leave, that's probably not a huge issue. They will likely give you plenty of warning, and you can offer the position to the substitute that you had to hire anyway.

Of course people are counting months and planning when to have children. That's the whole point! We decided that it should be easier for an average two-income family to have children. That's the reason for the rules.

A job is a contract. If you don’t want the contract to be used that way, don’t write it that way. I don’t feel bad towards my employees or coworkers who wait to give notice until shortly after annual bonuses are given out. My previous boss encouraged me to stick out my job another couple weeks until the next stock vesting date.

As long as both sides sign the job contract willingly, without a severe imbalance of power, it’s not abuse. It’s business.

Yea makes sense to use whatever free time to look for a better paying job, train for interviews ect.

Not sure why someone wouldn't do this. I would definitely do that.

> I have seen some time up precisely their pregnancies to maximize time off work, but still getting paid 100%.

I don't get it. This is exactly the kind of thing companies do to optimize their own profits. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander, no? Unless you're saying that the kind of ethical framing laissez-faire capitalism encourages is bad for society.

Children are a literal economic investment in the future. The taxpayers pay for them so they reap the benefits of their future productive tax revenue when they are old and can't make any more tax revenue themselves anymore. It's the entire cycle of life, or the original retirement plan.

> I have seen some time up precisely their pregnancies to maximize time off work, but still getting paid 100%

Your "exploit" is another's due compensation. You might examine where precisely your resentment comes from.

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