These policies have definitively contributed to a big social change. And while it looks on the surface like this is about "fairness for dad", on a macro level the changes mostly benefit women who want to both have kids and a career.
It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids.
At my job, I also see way more dads staying home with sick kids or going to "planning day" or similar, compared to when I was growing up.
Maybe. As a new father, though, back to the office from parental leave, I'm not pumping breast milk in the lactation room. 3 times per work day, ~40-45 minutes a pop. This is something my wife is actively dealing with today and it causes her a lot of stress, due to the fact that she's essentially MIA on the job despite the fact that everyone is aware of what's going on and she has full support. The perception that she's not pulling her weight is potentially there, and she struggles with it herself because she also feels like she isn't pulling her weight. It's all really complicated and we'll never truly have equality here, I don't think.
> It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids
True. But now it is a risk to hire people in certain age groups in general. Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?
Surely whether it's "their most economically productive age" would depend heavily on how many children they have and how much parental leave they are allowed.
We know that people in most developed countries aren't even hitting replacement rate, so I don't think that 6 months of leave is going to break the bank.
In my experience, employees who are bad employees and blame it on time commitment to their children have usually been bad employees to begin with. I have a child, spend upwards of 4 hours a day with them on average, and work at a FAANG, while hitting promotion tracks more quickly than my colleagues without children. I know a bunch of people doing the same.
> Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?
Not for a good company. I've had several employees go on maternity and paternity leave. I've given them respect, and time, and money, in order to make this time of their lives as unstressful as possible.
I've done it because it's the right thing, but these people remember being treated well. They've come back to work and done very well. They feel safer knowing that their day job explicitly supports their families.
The time someone needs off work to care for a new family is a drop in the bucket compared with a whole career, or even a few good years spent at one company. Optimize for the humans, and for the long term.
So you had good people that you wanted to get back? Great. A lot of us employ people who are just average and cannot afford to pay them multiple thousands while they are on leave, paying someone else to cover them, and then they could always decide to leave anyway.
Or you have a small business. Not every company is a 10,000 headcount multinational. Over 90% of small business employ fewer than 20 people and small businesses make up 30% of the economy.
Realistically, 1 person missing from a small business can mean 10% of their workforce is gone - and due to the size of the company they may not have people to cover the missing staff.
There's plenty of small business owners who are perfectly capable of managing the risk of losing staff for whatever reason without it sinking the company. Many business run at a big loss when starting up, never mind razor thin margins. The ones that survive manage their investors, debts, cashflow and staff risk properly.
If you run a business on the assumption that you're going to have all your current employees working for you continuously for the foreseeable future, you're going to have a bad time.
It would at least least disperse the risk from "don't hire women of a certain age" to "don't hire people of a certain age" which I think is a win on the margin.
* Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?*
No. The only real way to avoid this is to just not hire folks who can birth or father children. You'd be mostly safe hiring folks over 45 (Though men over 45 would be more risky than women). This probably isn't a good strategy for an employer.
Marriage doesn't lend itself to children: Having sex does. Having a stable relationship does. Adoption does. On the other hand, lots of married folks don't have children, on purpose or by circumstance. There is no real way to sort folks out.
I think it also establishes a connection between the dad and the kids that makes the dad a better parent down the road. At least spending a lot of time with my infants did change me enough to be a much better parent for the rest of the journey.
I very much agree with this. Having an extended amount of time where I was 100% responsible for my daughter made me feel very different compared to the time spent jointly looking after her. I hope it's made me a better parent.
Absolutely - and I love the change, in case that wasn't clear.
But I think the motivation was about equality for the sexes - and specifically, making it easier for women to work. The rest is just a bonus. A very nice bonus.
It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids.
At my job, I also see way more dads staying home with sick kids or going to "planning day" or similar, compared to when I was growing up.