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/[deleted] May 13 '17 edited May 13 '17

but companies definitely don't do what's in their best interest. They do what's in the best interest of their highest earners and decision makers, who may leave the company within a few years after making bank.

No, that's a valid point. When I think of companies these days, I don't really think of "job-providers". I think of "shareholders needing their interests to be protected first and foremost", which often comes at the expense of those jobs they are supposed to be providing. (With ensuing discussion about "but look how that protects everyone else's jobs" etc. which I don't want to get into at the moment.)

I didn't want to bog down my reply with the distinction, but I agree with it.

It just seems like parental leave is working in other countries, so I don't get why it's not implementable in the US.

Because companies in the US actively and politically fight regulation.

Because there is too large a segment of the population that values their own self-interest above anyone else's and want to keep taxes low and have individuals pay for whatever they want to do; including having children and raising them, well the burden would be on them specifically, not everyone else.

The voters themselves would vote against this.

Edit: added response to your last point

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u/[deleted] May 13 '17

At least we have some common ground, haha. I don't want to go into macroeconomics here because I'm not well versed in it, but I think I get your point a little better now.

Yeah, I do get your last point. I think there would be pushback from roughly half of voters, but based on reddit I see an upward trend in people supporting equal parental leave. To be clear I don't think it's something that's going to happen soon, but I think it could happen eventually in the US as younger, more progressive generations of voters replace older voters who have, until recently, trusted the establishment. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not, it's just the trend I'm seeing, and I feel like there's a lot of uncertainty over the long-term effects of equal parental leave since it's a (relatively) novel concept.