Hmmmm ... the United States does not offer paid maternity leave. So if you needed the money, and weren't a CEO, you would have to go back to work anyway. She is making a choice, but for many other women the choice has been made for them. The US is the only developed country without laws providing paid maternity leave.
In Canada, we provide 17-52 weeks of maternity leave for new mothers, depending on a few factors. Moreover, we allow for 15 weeks of paid leave for pregnant employees or new mothers, with another 35 weeks of 55% paid parental leave. [1]
In the US, up to 12 weeks of leave is allowed, but there are conditions and exemptions, one of which is that if you're a company of less than 50 employees, you don't have to allow leave.
From [1]: "If a mother has to rush back to work after giving birth because she cannot afford the lack of a paycheck, she may not be as effective at her job compared to if she was rested and had her family life settled."
I would rather have a kickass employee, male or female, be happy to come back to work after their home and family has settled.
If we hire in the US, I'd like to provide equivalent benefits to them as if they were in Canada. Hopefully I can make that happen, but that's an issue for future me to deal with since it's a long ways out.
[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/ca...
That's not strictly true. We need some women to bear children, but we don't need nearly as many as currently do it. We have a shortage of many things on this earth, but human beings aren't one of them. Why should society be encouraging women to have children when it's objectively better for society if most of them don't?
Strict population controls, like China's one-child policy, are probably a step too far, but not encouraging parenthood seems like a reasonable middle ground.
The US overall might not exhibit the typical traits of an educated society (family planning) -- I've not looked up the numbers. But with poor social mobility, there would still be a problem.
As for looking at the issues from a global perspective: do we really think importing children from third world countries is a viable, moral and/or sensible approach? If not, the sane plan for the future, is to encourage sustainable family planning everywhere: more children in the rich/highly educated part of the world, better access to contraceptives etc in the poor/less educated parts.
How long is the average paternity leave for new fathers? Or are you suggesting that fathers don't have a right to paternity leave and thus raise their children?