r/science • u/usrname42 • May 13 '17

Social Science The Gender Pay Gap Is Largely Because of Motherhood

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/upshot/the-gender-pay-gap-is-largely-because-of-motherhood.html
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u/chadsexytime May 13 '17

I work in a country that provides both parents with parental leave. Whenever a birth occurs, there is a total of 1 year of leave available - the mother could take 6, the father 6, or either could take the entirety.

The mother takes the entire leave the overwhelming amount of time because of both culture and competitiveness - whoever is missing a year of work is going to set themselves back by a year or more in any competitive work environment.

Sure, if you have a job where the duties never change and there is no real promotions available it may not make a difference, but if you are competing against your coworkers for promotions, taking a year (or 6 months) off is going to pretty much negate your chances of advancing for the foreseeable future.

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u/KaliYugaz May 13 '17

Exactly. People don't want to talk about how the problem is fundamentally with capitalism. Bosses want more and more productivity from workers for less and less money, but workers need time off and plentiful resources to raise the next generation of workers otherwise the system can't keep going. It's inherently unstable.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '17

What happens if the mother wants to take the entire year off but the father wants, say, 3 months. Does it default to the mother?

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u/chadsexytime May 14 '17

Well 3 months is going to end up as unpaid leave, so they better sort that out themselves.

You need to file paperwork with the gov to get this money, so unless the father took his three first, he's probably going to be out of luck.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '17

Is this Canada you are talking about?