kfletche@sun222.nas.nasa.gov (Katherine E. Fletcher) (08/02/90)
In article <19929.26ab3a4a@oregon.uoregon.edu> davidw@oregon.uoregon.edu writes: > I believe that women should have an equal place with men in the > business world and politically (hey, if I was old enough to vote, I > would've voted for Ferraro), but I think we have to be aware of some > problems this can cause. In hiring a male, one does not have to worry > that he will get pregnant and have to leave work. I don't think that > this should have ANY bearing on who gets hired, but many women feel > that their employer should pay for their time off while they're taking > care of their child. HA! Were I an employer, I would NOT set myself > up to be paying for a non-working employee. The employer who WOULD is > masochistic and doesn't want his(yes, or her) money. First, employers do pay for sick leave for their employees without going broke. In theory, it is a negotiation between the employer and employee and the employer could just as easily go broke by paying a higher base salary and not giving sick leave. I would like to use this as a starting point for a discussion about the economy of child making and rearing. What if the cost of these two things had to be borne completely equally by both partners in the conception. By this, I don't mean that the male and female could share equally in the physical cost (see Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin if this interests you), but that the economic cost had to be born by both. So that the male had to pay half of the women's lost salary due to pregnancy, half of the actual medical costs, and both people had to share equally the cost of lost work time due to child rearing errands - sick kiddo's, school chauffering etc. How would this impact on employer/employee relations and agreements? Both men and women would have equal incentive to lobby for parental leave, pregnancy leave, and insurance that supports the needs of parents. Their is still the two weeks that the woman must have for delivery and recovery, but that is comparable to vacation. Certain types of work would require longer and it might be harder to figure out a way that both responsible parties share in the cost for those types of jobs - heavy labor types. A construction company might still view the cost of retraining when a women leaves due to pregnancy as a reason to discriminate. Thoughts? Ideas? All you economists out there speak up. Kathi Fletcher kef@rice.edu
turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) (08/04/90)
----- In article <KFLETCHE.90Aug1204607@sun222.nas.nasa.gov>, kfletche@sun222.nas.nasa.gov (Katherine E. Fletcher) writes: > I would like to use this as a starting point for a discussion > about the economy of child making and rearing. What if the cost > of these two things had to be borne completely equally by both > partners in the conception. ... So that the male had to pay half > of the women's lost salary due to pregnancy, half of the actual > medical costs, and both people had to share equally the cost of > lost work time due to child rearing errands - sick kiddo's, school > chauffering etc. How would this impact on employer/employee > relations and agreements? > > Both men and women would have equal incentive to lobby for parental > leave, pregnancy leave, and insurance that supports the needs of > parents. ... You have a valid point. Child-care benefits, pregancy leave, and other parental expenses borne by employers do not really divide men and women. Parents are the ones who benefit from these, and non-parents are the ones who will collectively pay. In our society, more women than men are de facto parents, due to single women bearing children away from the father, and preferential custody decisions for women. Your point remains (and does not depend on an equal division of labor or cost between parents): these benefits are not really a man vs woman issue, but a parent vs non-parent issue. What has yet to be explained is why parenting requires more subsidization in this society. Do we have too few children? Do parents feel that the material sacrifices of parenting are too great for the rewards of this choice? Russell
bdelan@apple.com (Brian Delaney) (08/06/90)
In article <10848@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) writes: > What has yet to be explained is why parenting requires more > subsidization in this society. Do we have too few children? > Do parents feel that the material sacrifices of parenting are > too great for the rewards of this choice? This is a very important point. I've heard the complaint that without parental leave et al, that many couples could not afford to have children. Well, so what? The owner of the business, whether a man or a woman, is not in business to subsidize someone's desire to wiggle upstream and spawn. Maybe these people *can't* afford to have children. At least without affecting their standard of living. And it is not the business man or woman's job to make it affordable for them. After all, why stop at children? There are Ferrari's, yachts. . . . . I understand the angle that this is no different from allowing vacation. It is a perk to encourage quality people to remain with a company. I even agree with this, as long as the business is allowed to decide for themselves whether a particular employee is worth the cost. A man or woman who wants 6 months to bear a child brings tremendous cost onto a company; hiring a temporary worker, dealing with a worker who cannot be there in real time, possible re-training when the leave is over, etc. It should be up to the business to decide if a particular employee is productive enough to make up for these costs. If the employee *is* worth this, then the business will provide it out of simple self-interest. If the employee is not this productive, why should the business have to foot the bill for someone wanting to be a parent? What is really being said here is that having children is some sort of "right". And that it is the responsibility of the businesman or woman to finance this "right." I don't buy this. People have a "right" to affordable health care. They do not have a "right" to bring still more individuals into the world to enjoy that health care unless they can demonstrate the ability to provide for those persons on their own. The notion seems to be, "I'll have children just because I want to, and if I can't afford to do this on my own, without altering my lifestyle, then business or the government will just have to take up the slack." I understand, and agree with, the observation that parental leave improves the quality of life, for both the parent and any children. I'm all for "quality of life." However, remember the "Zero Population Growth" campaign of a few years back? Were the problems of pollution and resource depeletion suddenly solved while I wasn't looking? A decision to have children is a personal one. All of these parental rights programs take the cost of having children and distribute it across the whole population. Essentially, some of the costs of raising a child become "hidden" from the person making the decision to have a child. Between the "consciousness raising" leaflets extolling the virtues of lower population, and the financial incentives that such parental leave programs provide, which do you think will influence people more strongly? As Gloria Steinem said, checkbook stubs are the most direct indicators of our *real* values. The question of the "quality of life" for the child doesn't come up untill the parent decides to make it one by having the child in the first place. Thus, the real issue is one of the "quality of life" for the potential parent, the one who just "really wants" to have a child. The one who feels that their "quality of life" demands that they be able to have a child. Having already decided that they are *going* to have a child, then they insist that the lack of daycare, etc, affects the "quality of life" of both themselves and their children. Which is true, after a fashion, but only because they couldn't resist the temptation to breed. Maybe parental rights programs like this won't increase our population by much. However, Americans consume more of the world's resources per capita than any other nation. If you want to be international about it, how many starving Ethiopian children could be fed with the resources that one American child would consume? There is another angle here as well. Suppose we have ten million dollars in the bank. We could spend it on "quality of life" issues. Say, invest it in a day care center. This is spending money on something that we want today. It makes our life more pleasant. This is what might be called "investing in consumption." Or, we could apply this money toward, say, replacing our out-moded steel mills with ones that are more efficient and pollute less. This would improve our air, make our steel indistry more competitve on the international market, and thus help solve some of the unemployment problem in the Mid-West. This doesn't just help us. It helps our children, and our children's children. One might call this "investing in production." Now, I've horribly, maybe even criminally, simplified the issue here. I realize this. After all, one could argue that improved day care will produce a generation of brilliant children who will solve all the world's problems. The point I'm trying to make is that evey expenditure of money we make involves trade offs. There is the problem of "opportunity cost." The question is not, "Wouldn't mandatory day care be nice?" The list of things that would be nice to have is nearly infinite. The question is, "Is this the *best* allocation of limited resources amongst the many competing alternatives?" Our economy is already uncompetitive with many foreign nations. This gap is getting wider, not narrower, as time goes on. What will history say of us? Will some future historian observe that while we had the world's largest budget defecit, a moribund steel industry, rampant unemployment, a deteriorating environment, and a slipping technological edge; that we decided to spend money assuring that those people with jobs could take 6 months off to have children? For some reason I am reminded of that old truism from the Romans, that democracy will destroy itself one the people realize that they can vote themselves bread and circus. . . . . . . I've babbled on long enough here, so . . . . . . . ************************************************************************** Brian "High Tech Sex and Affordable Firepower" Delaney Disclaimer: NOBODY, least of all Apple, thinks the way I do. **************************************************************************
jensting@diku.dk (Jens Tingleff) (08/08/90)
>In article <19929.26ab3a4a@oregon.uoregon.edu> davidw@oregon.uoregon.edu writes: [..] > > this should have ANY bearing on who gets hired, but many women feel > > that their employer should pay for their time off while they're taking > > care of their child. HA! Were I an employer, I would NOT set myself > > up to be paying for a non-working employee. The employer who WOULD is > > masochistic and doesn't want his(yes, or her) money. She (he) also doesn't want her (his) employees. Of course, with a group of employees that are desperate to avoid unemployment the employer may get away with having this attitude. If the employer has to compete with other employers to employ these people (highly skilled/educated employees), then she (he) should d*mn well have to think differently.. . Thankfully, for me this is academic, since Denmark has maternity leave for both the mother and the father, so there ! [Note for the less educated: Denmark is small country in northern Europe. We do pay a lot of taxes, and some of us think that we get quite a lot for these taxes.. .] Jens Jens Tingleff MSc EE, Institute of Computer Science, Copenhagen University Snail mail: DIKU Universitetsparken 1 DK2100 KBH O "It never runs around here; it just comes crashing down" apologies to Dire Straits
judyd%wizard.cna.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET ("Judy E. Drake") (08/09/90)
In article <9584@goofy.Apple.COM> bdelan@apple.com (Brian Delaney) writes: > >In article <10848@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) >writes: >> What has yet to be explained is why parenting requires more >> subsidization in this society. > >This is a very important point. I've heard the complaint that without >parental leave et al, that many couples could not afford to have children. > >Well, so what? The owner of the business, whether a man or a woman, is >not in business to subsidize someone's desire to wiggle upstream and >spawn... There's something here that I think Russell and Brian are overlooking. The subsidization of parenting in our society is desirable because it's good business. As a partner in a small business (~100 employees), I have had the chance to observe how benefits such as health insurance and profit sharing encourage good employees to stay with the company. I don't see parental leave as any different. When our company can afford it (and I hope it can in the near future), I'd like to see an onsite daycare made available to our employees. I am convinced that there is a high correlation between how well the company does financially and the satisfaction of the employees with their workplace and their management. (It sounds simple and obvious, but it's amazing how many employers just don't get it!) >I understand the angle that this is no different from allowing vacation. >It is a perk to encourage quality people to remain with a company. I even >agree with this, as long as the business is allowed to decide for >themselves whether a particular employee is worth the cost... >If the employee *is* worth this, then the business >will provide it out of simple self-interest. If the employee is not this >productive, why should the business have to foot the bill for someone >wanting to be a parent? You can't provide benefits on an employee-by-employee basis. You have to give them to everyone or no one. Overall, I think it's more profitable to the company to give these types of benefits to everyone. And yes, business usually do everything out of self interest. Fortunately for many employees, treating them well is usually in their employers' self interest. >What is really being said here is that having children is some sort of >"right". And that it is the responsibility of the businesman or woman to >finance this "right." Having children is a right, but it's not necessarily the responsibility of the business sector to finance their employees' children. Here in Oregon, companies who have fewer than 25 employees have to grant a minimum of six weeks of maternity leave. Companies with more than 25 employees have to grant 12 weeks' maternity leave, by state law. This is not financing ANYONE'S children by a long shot. These laws merely guarantee a woman's job when she returns from maternity leave. As an employer, I am in favor of parental leave and company-subsidized daycare. I am in favor of parental benefits because I think they would help our bottom line, plain and simple. I am NOT in favor of legislating that employers MUST provide these benefits to their employees. Our company would not be in business if five years ago we had been required to provide health insurance. We do so now because we can afford it and it's good for business, but we first had to grow the business to the point where we could afford it. As a result, we're providing 100 jobs with health insurance today because we were able to employ 25 people without insurance five years ago. Tomorrow, daycare! >There is another angle here as well. Suppose we have ten million dollars >in the bank. We could spend it on "quality of life" issues. Say, invest >it in a day care center. This is spending money on something that we want >today. It makes our life more pleasant... > >Or, we could apply this money toward, say, replacing our out-moded steel >mills with ones that are more efficient and pollute less. This would >improve our air, make our steel indistry more competitve on the >international market, and thus help solve some of the unemployment problem >in the Mid-West... First of all, ten million dollars would go a long way in providing daycare, but it probably wouldn't build a small corner of a new steel mill. However, perhaps giving the parents of those children in the daycare a chance to go to work with some peace of mind would allow those parents to be more productive workers. >The question is not, "Wouldn't mandatory day care be nice?" The list of >things that would be nice to have is nearly infinite. The question is, >"Is this the *best* allocation of limited resources amongst the many >competing alternatives?" I know it's trite, but children ARE our future. I don't think we can go wrong allocating (or REallocating) more government resources to improving life for this country's children. Putting more federal and state funds into daycare programs, housing, and education would ameliorate a number of related social problems, such as drug abuse and unemployment. When I think of how many kids could be fed and schooled using the funds spend on the Stealth bomber program, it makes me sick. >Our economy is already uncompetitive with many foreign nations. This gap >is getting wider, not narrower, as time goes on. What will history say of >us? Will some future historian observe that while we had the world's >largest budget defecit, a moribund steel industry, rampant unemployment, a >deteriorating environment, and a slipping technological edge; that we >decided to spend money assuring that those people with jobs could take 6 >months off to have children? While I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, I do know that the US lags far behind other industrialized nations in parental and daycare benefits, those same nations to whom we are losing our competitive edge. Just another viewpoint. Judy Drake
desj@ucsd.edu (David desJardins) (08/09/90)
In article <9584@goofy.Apple.COM> bdelan@apple.com (Brian Delaney) writes: >This is a very important point. I've heard the complaint that without >parental leave et al, that many couples could not afford to have children. >Well, so what? [...] >What is really being said here is that having children is some sort >of "right". [...] People have a "right" to affordable health care. >They do not have a "right" to bring still more individuals into the >world to enjoy that health care unless they can demonstrate the >ability to provide for those persons on their own. I basically agree with you. I think that people who cannot afford the time, effort, or money to do a good job of raising children should not have children. *However*, the fact of the matter is that people do have children, regardless of whether I think that they should or not. And they care for those children as well or as poorly as they choose. Obstacles placed in the way of good practices in child-rearing lead inescapably to children who are raised to be (in my view) less desirable citizens of our society. Thus, it is in society's *interest* to promote practices which lead to future good citizens (I hope I'm not sounding too preachy here). That is why we have public schools instead of providing education only to those whose parents can afford it and choose to pay for it. And similarly that is why we should be promoting opportunities for parents to spend a reasonable amount of time with their children. -- David desJardins
llama@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Joe Francis) (08/10/90)
In article <352@ccrwest.UUCP> ccrwest!desj@ucsd.edu (David desJardins) writes: [in a discussion of the merits of parental leave] > Thus, it is in society's *interest* to promote practices which lead >to future good citizens (I hope I'm not sounding too preachy here). >That is why we have public schools instead of providing education only >to those whose parents can afford it and choose to pay for it. And >similarly that is why we should be promoting opportunities for parents >to spend a reasonable amount of time with their children. I agree entirely. However, your example is not a strong analogy to mandated parental leave. Our education system is paid for by taxes. Only people and institutions who make money pay for our education system. Progressive taxation (I wish it was truly progressive - instead of giving breaks to the wealthy) is a very low-impact way to finance our education system. Mandated parental leave will cost businesses money. NOTE: Not PROFITABLE businesses, not LARGE CORPORATIONS, but all businesses. Many businesses barely survive. Making these businesses pay for parental leave is like making the very poor pay the tax rates of the very rich (all right, the rich get a break - make it the affluent and upper middle class, who actually pay the highest tax rates). Your analogy is better suited to publicly funded daycare, which I support and believe is both fairer in implementation and more beneficial then mandated parental leave. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Read My Lips: No Nude Texans!" - George Bush clearing up a misunderstanding
turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin) (08/11/90)
----- I wrote something in which this small piece has been carried on: >>> What has yet to be explained is why parenting requires more >>> subsidization in this society. In article <6108@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM>, judyd%wizard.cna.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET ("Judy E. Drake") writes: > There's something here that I think Russell and Brian are overlooking. > The subsidization of parenting in our society is desirable because > it's good business. ... In general, I agree. Especially in the provision of on-site day-care, employers can provide a much more congenial and wholesome work environment for a relatively small cost. (Unfortunately, many state laws and the pending federal laws will make it almost impossible for most employers to do this. These laws regulate to a ridiculous extreme the kind of building that must be used for child care, and very few employers will buy a new building or change facilities to do this. The gradual socialization of child care will be a very mixed blessing to parents.) The point I intended to address was the political issue, not the issue of what employees and employers do. Employees should bargain for as many benefits as they can get, especially those that are paid for by pre-tax money. Employees can decide for themselves what benefits are most important to them, and this will vary from business to business. Employees are not homogenous, and the need for child care will vary in different businesses, and even with different firms in the same business. > I am NOT in favor of legislating that employers MUST provide these > benefits to their employees. ... An unfortunate side effect of this is that it actually produces a mix of benefits that is less optimal for employees. If, for example, parental leave benefits are mandated, some groups of employees that prefer first some other benefit will be frustrated that they cannot turn these resources to something else. The more benefits that are mandated, the more uniform the mix of benefits in every kind of business and every firm within a field. Ideally, (from the employee's viewpoint) there would be different mixes, so that the employee can gravitate toward the mix that maximizes both benefits and salary for their individual needs. > You can't provide benefits on an employee-by-employee basis. ... Cafeteria plans are a step in this direction, though only large firms can readily provide them. For small firms, the solution lies in flexibility and tailoring benefits to each firm's group of employees. As I point out above, mandatory benefits makes this more difficult. Russell
eris@tc.fluke.COM (Chris Beckmeyer) (08/28/90)
and while we're at it... why does medical insurance cover prenatal care and delivery? pregnancy and child birth is RARELY an accident anymore, and is in itself, NEVER an illness. goddess knows, many many women spend years and thousands of dollars getting pregnant in the first place. to me, this makes it definitely an ELECTIVE procedure, like a face lift which isn't covered by any insurance policies i know of. pregnancy is certainly more ELECTIVE than crooked teeth requiring braces or vision loss requiring glasses which insurance doesn't cover either! i'm not saying that PROBLEMS with the mother or fetus should not be covered expenses, but a normal pregnancy and delivery??? NO WAY!!! then i get it all the time, "if it wasn't for insurance i couldn't afford to have children!" then why are you doing it? the pregnancy/delivery is the smallest expense involved in having children and you CAN'T AFFORD IT? give me break! to brian delaney re: (mild soap box)- thank you. one of the most sensible articles i've seen on the net. to dave desjardins re: public education--it's not exactly a social benefit bestowed on the masses out of kindness and foresight. no handy references, but my sociology/history education pointed out the fact that mandatory public education came about as a result of pressure from labor unions to keep children out of the job market, thus protecting adult jobs and enabling them to demand a higher wage (good thing) in light of the reduced labor force. re: parental leave--here in washington the leave is required, but it is not required to be PAID. however, the employee's salary is minor compared to the rest of the costs incurred by the employer... temporary help at $25 to $50 per hour, lost production while training the temp help @ double what the employee made, etc. etc. etc. just some thoughts...flame away chris "don't patronize me"