A PhD apparently means never having to confess economic illiteracy:
On the one hand, seniority pay seems reasonable to me. On the other, the simple fact is that men do not take, and are not eligible to take, maternity leave. If a company (or a country) provides maternity leave, but not paternity leave, then paying less to women who take it is, I think, clearly discriminatory. On the other hand, if they offer both maternity *and* paternity leave, and if the paternity leave is as long as the maternity leave, then I’d say fine, legally. Although I imagine that in the real world, the dad’s company may not offer such leave, and the fact that it’s legal to discriminate in pay if someone takes it is probably *more*, not less likely to encourage men not to do so.
Fuck it, man. We need to just make paid parental leave for both parents mandatory.
Or we could simply have the government mandate a mininum annual wage of ONE BILLION dollars for everyone. And it will be paid via helicopter regardless of whether you work or not. Then we’d all be rich and have as much free time as we wanted!
Apparently this woman hasn’t ever been to France or Sweden and seen the results of similar mandates. The truth is that if the goal is to raise wages and make childcare affordable without destroying the national economy, the single most effective thing the government could do would be to ban working mothers* while holding down immigration.
On the pro-side, however, mandatory parental leave would be a VERY effective means of ending discrimination against elderly workers.
Scratch a feminist, find a fascist. Every. Single. Time.
*I’m the libertarian, remember. I’m not endorsing this, merely playing Keynesian’s advocate. No sort of leave, maternity, sick or vacation, is an appropriate matter for government involvement.