I'd argue it is more likely to help you in tech' than hurt you. Companies are falling all over themselves to bring in more women.
No clue on finance however.
No clue on finance however.
In the HN echo chamber maybe. I still think hiring managers are thinking "maternity leave" especially in the US.
That's a bit confused.
The US requires unpaid maternity (and other) leave via FMLA; a few states also provide some degree of paid maternity leave. (In both cases, "maternity" is overly specific, but included, in what is generally described -- as in the title of FMLA -- as "family and medical leave".) [0]
[0] http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-fami...
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/1421.htm#2a
Plus let's be honest, unpaid maternity leave is worthless even if the FMLA worked (it doesn't). That isn't maternity leave, that's "job assurance" if people cannot afford to take leave, they won't. Its as simple as that.
The US is by far the worst western country when it comes to guaranteeing that mothers and fathers will be able to spend time with their kids in the all important first year. Don't even get me started on how bad the US treats single parents.
(1) The US has no national maternity leave provision, and (2) A few states provide maternity leave, but even that is only unpaid.
The fact is, the US does have a national unpaid maternity leave provision, and a few states provide paid maternity leave.
> FMLA has so many loopholes it may have well not exist at all
FMLA covers about 60% of all employees, and is used by about 13% annually. So, while it certainly doesn't cover everyone, it certainly has considerably more effect than if it did not exist at all.
> Plus let's be honest, unpaid maternity leave is worthless even if the FMLA worked (it doesn't). That isn't maternity leave, that's "job assurance" if people cannot afford to take leave, they won't.
Its true that unpaid maternity leave obviously isn't as good as paid leave, and people are less likely to take it at all, and likely to take less of it than they would if the lead were paid. That doesn't change the fact that the existence of FMLA as a national source of unpaid maternity leave makes your early claim that there was no US national maternity leave, even unpaid, false, nor does it change the fact that the existence of state paid maternity leave programs makes your further claim that the few states that offered maternity leave offered only unpaid leave also false.
> The US is by far the worst western country when it comes to guaranteeing that mothers and fathers will be able to spend time with their kids in the all important first year.
That's rather clearly true, but not what you claimed upthread, and, more importantly, would have been irrelevant where you made the claim upthread about the nonexistence of required maternity leave in the US, since the US's relative position on maternity leave is immaterial to the issue, which is that hiring managers might avoid hiring women because they might take maternity leave. Since most positions are covered by FMLA, and since FMLA does provide for maternity leave that employees have a right to take, hiring managers might well be considering that, even if the US maternity leave provisions are poor compared to every other developed (not just "western") country.
But I won't conceded that what the US calls "Maternity Leave" is not in fact it by any modern standard of the term, it is nothing more than a job assurance program that even according to you only reaches 60% of people. And out of them few can afford it (and even them not for its full duration).
A handful of US states offer legitimate Maternity Leave and they should be congratulated for that. The federal government should be ashamed, FMLA is pathetic, and their inaction lets people (both parents & children) down daily.
To be honest I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make. That the US is awesome? That maternity leave is fine? That you just want to be "right?" If it is the first two points then we'll never reach consensus and if it is the last point then this is all a waste of time.
That your fact claims upthread (to wit that the US has no national mandatory maternity leave, including unpaid, and that the small number of states that provide more than what is nationally mandated require only unpaid leave) are false and the conclusion they were offered upthread to support (that it is not plausible that US hiring managers would act based on the concern that female applicants might demand maternity leave) is unjustified, since the US has a national mandate that covers most employees for unpaid maternity leave and the handful of states that require something more than the national minimum provide paid leave, and, whether or not those are good maternity leave mandates, they do exist, employees might make use of them, and hiring managers might well act based on sex-based assumptions about which candidates would be more likely to avail themselves of those mandatory leave programs.