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On Tuesday, August 4th, Neflix announced on their blog that they would begin offering new parents a progressive parental leave policy:
...Today we're introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child's birth or adoption.
The Boston Globe picked up the story earlier today and compared Netflix's new policy to Google's, which offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and 12 weeks of "baby bonding" time. The Boston Globe also notes:
The US and Papua New Guinea are the only countries among 185 nations and territories that hadn't imposed government-mandated laws requiring employers to pay mothers while on leave with their babies, according to a study released last year by the United Nations' International Labor Organization.
This new policy "covers all of the roughly 2,000 people working at [Netflix's] Internet video and DVD-by-mail services, according to the Los Gatos, California, company."
However, not all media voices are pleased with this change. Suzanne Venker, author of the recent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Parents Are Choosing To Stay Home, writes for Time :
Offering new parents full pay for up to one year is akin to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The needs of children are huge, and they do not end at one year. On the contrary, they just begin. Taking a year off of work to meet those needs merely scratches the surface.
What does Soylent think? Should companies offer new parents lengthy paid leave after they bring a new bundle of joy into the world, or do generous policies do more harm than good?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday August 06 2015, @06:45PM
Surprisingly then, this isn't the experience of those (the majority) countries that already have legislation covering maternity leave.
You are correct that women are valued less, rightly or wrongly, than men but the opposite side of the coin is that they earn less too. Many companies find it advantageous to employ women on a lower wage if the work that they produce is not significantly different than that produced by men. Some jobs are more suited to women by virtue of dexterity or specific skills. Yes, the companies know that they might lose them at some point, but there are plenty of others out there who can fill the post either temporarily, or permanently if the mother decides that she wants to stay at home for longer than is covered by existing employment legislation.
The workforce doesn't always want to work at the same place permanently, nor do they all have the same expectations and dreams. The knack is to provide a mixed bag of employment opportunities; some permanent, some temporary, some that you can leave and return to later, some that you can do from home, part-time, school-hours only or whatever. That way, there is something for those that want/need to earn an income can find to meet their needs. The problem is that getting that balance is not easy and requires changes in both the way a company views its workforce, the expectations of the that workforce and the economy under which they both must exist.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aclarke on Thursday August 06 2015, @08:16PM
In Canada even the idea of discussing "maternity leave" sounds antiquated. We have "parental leave". I may get some of the details wrong, but parents of naturally born children get one year they can take off between them. The father can only take up to nine months of that, due to the idea that the woman bearing the child should have at least three months to recover. Similarly, parents adopting a child can take up to nine months between them.
No system is perfect, including ours. For example, my wife and I were self employed when we had kids, so we weren't covered. I know a guy who works as an engineer, and his boss informally said something like "no male engineers here have taken parental leave...", with the unspoken (and illegal) connotation following "... and if you value your career here you won't either."
However, just mentally leaving the idea of "maternity leave" behind frees one up to looking at the issue very differently. A stable, well-functioning society has tremendous value. In my opinion, a society that refuses to care for its weakest and most vulnerable members is a seriously dysfunctional society. To me, the concept of six weeks of maternal leave sounds almost barbaric.