Say what you want about the US, but the level of protection workers have is so much better than most other countries.
The US has summary firing. In Japan if you're a permanent employee you can reasonably expect to remain so.
From the people pissing in bottles at Amazon your protections don't sound any better.
Hiring discrimination against child bearing aged women is universal - it's just in the US they have to be more careful how they do it.
“you know, every time we interview a woman in her late 20s/early 30s, I just have to wonder if she’ll take maternity leave 6 months in to working with us. As a startup we just can’t afford that”.
Of course the public face of the company was all about fighting inequality, supporting diversity, etc.
* Not undergoing training (if applicable, eg: a new hire).
* Not gaining and maintaining experience and knowledge in the field.
* Not making business connections with others in the industry and elsewhere.
* Not keeping up (in regards to new standards and ways of doing) with her workplace and the industry at large; IT industries especially so.
* Not providing her manpower, which must be compensated by another employee(s) who can't just be fired or transferred away when (or if) she returns.
Basically, the overhead of accomodating and compensating for employees that maek babby is simply unacceptable for many businesses, especially the smaller ones and particularly if the babby is had very early in their employment or career.
You might say this is sexism and discrimination (even though it's not; childbirth is a choice to be made), but this is the cold harsh reality. People who agree to be employed are expected to work, not maek babby.
This is also a reason for falling birthrates: More people just want to live and work without the sacrifices demanded by childbirth and rearing. They know their life or career they have or dream of could end right there if they choose to have children.
Airline companies of all sizes are really hesitant to hire women pilots, because training and certifying pilots is fucking expensive in both money and time. They really do not want to invest in a new pilot only for her (or him, for that matter) to say "Yeah, I'm quitting/taking leave for my new baby." and have to write off their investment that could have gone to another would-be pilot who would fly with them for many decades.
For an early stage startup the potential loss of an important person is incalculable. 3 month delay could put you irrecoverably behind in the market, it could cause you to run out of funding as your efficiency tanks. Treating it statistically the same way you would for airlines does not work for startups that are fundamentally about being an exception to statistics.
For pilots, airlines refuse to hire people with zero experience and pay for them to go through pilot school: they expect people to pay for all that on their own: get their licenses and enough hours of flying time to be eligible for working for the big airlines. Guess what? That costs a lot of money and not many people want to do it any more. If the airlines really want to hire more pilots, then they need to invest in their training, all the way from zero experience. Of course, they don't want to do that, so they whine and complain.
I'm trying to imagine an insurance policy that a) protects against financial losses related to losing a pivotal member and b) pays out because they got pregnant, and it sounds insane.