First off, let me extend my thanks to Crooked Timber for letting me guest-blog this week. I will jump right into the fray by remarking on why the United States is not having a conversation about working time and the need for a better work-life balance, despite the expansion in the annual number of hours worked. This trend puts the US at odds with much of Western Europe, where the annual number of hours worked has fallen since the 1970s (as shown by the OECD). The United States also is one of the only advanced industrialized countries without a paid parental leave. Yet, the silence on these issues – from both major political parties – is deafening.
One reason is the weakening of labor unions in the United States. While unions have not always been strong advocates for women’s rights, the feminization of the labor force and union membership in many European countries had injected concerns about working time, parental leave, and child care into union and left party politics. Without a similar collective actor in the US, American parents lack an organized proxy that can champion their interests in the political sphere. Moreover, the issues of child care and parental leave are most pressing for parents at a time when they are too busy to become politically active. Politicians simply do not hear that they need to expend political capital to address the needs of working parents. What they do hear, however, are the voices of the highly organized movement of social conservatives that will strongly oppose public child care subsidies and paid leave as favoring working mothers over stay-at-home moms. This asymmetry of political activism – frazzled and unorganized parents versus a politically mobilized minority – creates substantial obstacles to a sensible conversation about work and family.
{ 49 comments }
am 03.28.05 at 9:50 pm
Congratulations on successfully omitting all mention of the economic impact of the policies which you espouse, and upon instead ascribing it all to the neanderthal instincts of “social conservatives”.
In all, a classic CT posting. You’ll go far.
Laura 03.28.05 at 10:03 pm
Actually, unions in the US have worked against many policies that would benefit parents. For example, some parents feel that they can better balance their responsibilities by working part time. Unions have fought against increasing part time work because they fear that it would put full time workers in jeapardy. Part time work doesn’t receive the same benefits that full time work does.
Kieran Healy 03.28.05 at 10:23 pm
omitting all mention of the economic impact of the policies which you espouse
You can get a sense of the devastating economic impact of paid parental leave policies by taking a look at fifteen or so other rich capitalist democracies.
Matthew 03.28.05 at 10:49 pm
You can get a sense of the devastating economic impact of a paid parental leave policies by taking a look at fifteen or so other rich capitalist democracies.
Many of which the OECD report points out have high unemployment rates. Where people choose to work less “since a higher share of the potential earnings that would result from working more would, in any case, be paid in taxes.” It is interesting that at least one European country recently lengthened their work week. The OECD chart that Kimberly refers to measures hours worked per capita, which is quite different than measuring per worker. A per capita measurement would seem to favor countries that have high unemployment rates, which is why we find Mexico and Greece to the right of the table. I’m too lazy to lookup the per worker numbers, but they would seem to have more bearing here.
EarlW 03.28.05 at 11:08 pm
Paid maternity leave. What a great idea. Guaranteed to reduce the availability of jobs for women of child bearing age. Here in Canada, women have a year of paid leave. We also have incredibly high taxes.
You want to have a kid? Great, just don’t expect everyone else to support you.
Thomas 03.28.05 at 11:50 pm
Of course, paid parental leave and public child care subsidies do favor “working mothers” over “stay at home moms”.
And of course there are ways to design benefits that don’t favor one group over the other. For some reason, those aren’t the means to the end.
Consider the situation of many families in the “highly organized movement” referenced in the post: One spouse is employed outside the home, while the other is at home with the child or children. There are financial sacrifices to the arrangement, but the family bears them willingly.
Now, here comes the government, offering to help these frazzled parents–parents who struggle with the same things that all parents struggle with. And what’s the solution offered? Well, we’d like to raise taxes on your single income, and use the proceeds to subsidize other families.
“Other families” meaning, not, say, the impoverished, or the disabled, or some other such category. No, we mean similarly situated families, from an economic perspective, who have made different arrangements for the care of their offspring.
What a surprise to find that these parents politically mobilize.
Henry 03.28.05 at 11:58 pm
earlw – think a little bit (if that’s not too much to ask) about what would happen to the Canadian economy if women didn’t support it in all sorts of ill-remunerated ways through their work in childrearing or in the household, in addition (if they’re not well off) to working a full time job in order to make ends meet. Paid parental leave for a year is a fairly minimal return for this. Frankly mate, you’re full of it.
Jeff 03.29.05 at 12:18 am
Was this post intended to coincide with the abolition of the 35 hour work week in France? Your argument is unconvincing; are parents too busy to lobby government or is there another explanation for their silence on this issue? Maybe they understand that labor market rigidity and lavish entitlements lead to double digit unemployment and real growth rates that approximate zero. Onerous labor policies are not in the interest of American workers. The benefits of such policies come at the expense of the millions who would be thrown out of work as business flees to friendlier locales.
Andrew Boucher 03.29.05 at 12:20 am
“Paid maternity leave.” Actually France has two weeks of paid paternity leave as well. The father isn’t forced to take it, but his company cannot refuse it if he chooses it.
Eric 03.29.05 at 12:38 am
A couple of things. One of the benifits that has not alredy been mentioned is to help stabilize the lives of everyone by not making childbearing into a traumatic and economic devistating even for a couple. Stability in the workforce and reduction in family and economic hardship goes a long way to help people get through the inital hump ( no pun intended ). For social conservatives to call for a “culture of life” and then turn their backs on the family does not bode well for thier hypocracy. You could probably cut the abortion and divorce rate in half by removing the inital economic hardship and unemployment that many families and women face. It would not totally offset the cost, but the reduced stress that single parent families and divorces put on society as a whole would offset the cost of any such program.
Yet social conservatives are pushing laws in the state realm to protect employees that refuse to do their job because of moral objections. So we want to protect employess who refuse to do thier job, but we can’t make accomidations to the working family to better allow them to have a family. Something is terribly wrong here.
As for longer hours, I have only found short times in my life where I had no option but to work hours beyond what I wanted. I even took a 10% pay cut this past year to move into a tenure track position that will provide great benifits and stability to start a family. It’s all a matter of taking an hones apprasial of what you want in life and deciding that making more money does not necessarily get you closer to that goal. There is two ways to improve your standard of living, make more or spend less.
mrjauk 03.29.05 at 1:51 am
Yes, those European economies sure are devastated. Have you taken a look at upstate New York recently? If the US govt agencies were doing their job correctly, you’d find that unemployment is much higher in this economy than the numbers suggest, inflation is much higher than the “real numbers” suggest (what does that do to real GDP figures, I wonder?), and the GDP figures less hedonic adjustments (which European number-crunchers don’t do) would be much closer to European figures than is the conventional wisdom. What’s keeping this house of cards from toppling? There’s this huge printing press in Washington that’s been working overtime for about 20 years (if not more). Once the Japanese and Chinese central bankers refuse to take any more funny money, the game is over.
floopmeister 03.29.05 at 2:03 am
There is two ways to improve your standard of living, make more or spend less.
“To make a man rich, don’t add to his wealth. Subtract from his desires.” Epicurus
joel turnipseed 03.29.05 at 2:55 am
As someone who has run a company before, I can definitely say that until we get nationalized health care, we will not get parental leave. My insurance costs were almost $400/mo per pregnancy-aged woman (no doubt higher now) — at the pay scale we had, while it would still take 12 saved premium years to cover one year of leave (not trivial!), it’s a trade-off that would be a lot easier to make if employers weren’t already taking the hit for insurance (which is killing many industries in the US, a fact that leaves me baffled as to why business leaders aren’t pushing for Nationalized Health). I suppose if we also got European health-care efficiency (subtract average OECD state GDP spending from US), we could use that percentage of GDP to subsidize leave/daycare/education/ecfe/etctera.
As far as “Social Conservatives” go, I doubt many of them have read much Burke, Oakeschott (or, on welfare, are aware of Disraeli/Bismark), but I do think mrjauk’s comments point up a distinctly-US danger regarding globalization: our utter unwillingness to share risk across society seems like it really sets us up for a hard, hard fall when the next global economic shock (regardless of its origin) comes… you wouldn’t think conservatives would play that kind of dice with their society.
joel turnipseed 03.29.05 at 2:56 am
ps: after reading the garble of some of that last post, can we have “preview” back?
jdsm 03.29.05 at 3:06 am
From where I’m sitting (Finland), paid maternity and paternity leave don’t seem to be having a devastating economic impact as one poster suggested. Finland has the most competitive economy in the world according to some indices and also has the strongest growth in the Eurozone this year. It really doesn’t feel like meltdown to me.
The social benefits as have been mentioned, are enormous and I speak from practical experience. I had three weeks off and my wife had nine months off at about 60% of her full salary and continues to get some support 18 months on. Personally, I can’t imagine sending my child to day care before she’s at least 18 months.
People who talk of negative economic consequences of social protection in general tend to lump Europe in together when in fact you have at least a couple of social models. The Nordic model is one of them and seems to work quite well. Welfare and competitiveness are really not opposed to each other and welfare and per capita productivity are obviously not opposed to each other, which is in my view the important thing.
All that aside, the US is not supposed to be like Europe. The history of the US is very much a case of individuals living together with the minimum of constraints on one another. It thus seems right that they should not expect to have to protect one another if they don’t want to. People who wish to share risk should band together and form an association but it would seem to go against the ethos of the US to share social risks at the state level.
Luc 03.29.05 at 4:04 am
Just to add a small point, these concerns about work and family have also reached (parts of) the right in Europe. Which explains why these policies have been implemented with the necessary consensus.
paul 03.29.05 at 5:41 am
Earlw wrote, “Paid maternity leave… Guaranteed to reduce the availability of jobs for women of child bearing age.” However, if paid paternity leave was offered under the same conditions, any competitive disadvantage to women in the workplace would be eliminated. It would be interesting to learn what the French and Finnish experiences in this area have shown.
CKR 03.29.05 at 7:10 am
The social policy question is at what level the population is to be stablized, and then how to stabilize it. If parenthood is too demanding in terms of money and time, people will forgo it.
Matt McGrattan 03.29.05 at 7:38 am
Ckr:
“If parenthood is too demanding in terms of money and time, people will forgo it.”
All of the information we have seems to suggest that this is a total crock.
Parenthood is just not one of those things that’s subject to that kind of rational calculus — it’s not ‘market driven’.
One only has to look at the different rates of reproduction between the poorest and least educated sectors of most Western countries and the wealthiest and best educated.
In the UK there’s some degree of social safety net but life as a parent on a very low income is still no fun. It doesn’t seem to stop people having children.
jet 03.29.05 at 7:51 am
I wonder how come no one here has responded to Thomas’s post? It seems to answer quite a few questins being asked.
jpe 03.29.05 at 8:33 am
In the UK there’s some degree of social safety net but life as a parent on a very low income is still no fun. It doesn’t seem to stop people having children.
In America, part of that can be attributed to lower costs – college? Nah. That’s a big future liability off the books straight off. Clothes? Food? Rent? All paid for by the government (and the poor are aware of this – having a kid really isn’t the traumatic experience it would be for, say, me). That suggests that more subsidization will, in fact, encourage poppin’ puppies.
Andrew Boucher 03.29.05 at 8:50 am
“Earlw wrote, “Paid maternity leave… Guaranteed to reduce the availability of jobs for women of child bearing age.†However, if paid paternity leave was offered under the same conditions, any competitive disadvantage to women in the workplace would be eliminated. It would be interesting to learn what the French and Finnish experiences in this area have shown.”
I can speak about the French experience. First maternity leave is much longer than paternity leave. Two weeks for the latter, 3-6 months for the former. Moreover, whereas almost all women will take all their maternity leave, men tend to take it if they can.
Anecdotal evidence that I know of does tend to support the idea that women of child-bearing age are discriminated against to some extent – not massively (?!), but if it’s a close decision between a woman who may get pregnant and someone outside that category, chances are the latter will get the job.
jdsm 03.29.05 at 9:02 am
And in Finland I don’t know what proportion of men take the longer leave. From anecdotal evidence it’s not high but at the same time it’s not very significant either. In terms of job prospects women don’t talk of discrimination before they have children. When you have a job and then have a child, your employer is obliged to hold your job for you for three years. My wife quit her job after our daughter was born and has had less success at getting an interview than she had before she had one young child. That’s not that surprising. I suspect it will change after number 2.
Eric 03.29.05 at 9:40 am
People, you are only reinforcing the standpoint that NOT having paid maternity leave is passive ( and sometimes outright ) discrimination against women of child bearing age in the workforce. I would say that it’s even more dramatic for those women who attempt to have careers in a profesional line of work.
To say that pregnancy is not market driven is ignoring the obvious. Don’t people see that a woman who wants to be good to their children and take more than 3 months of unpaid leave is basicly forbiden from carring a decent salary in the market. Couples are forced to take one menber out of the market in order to give the child even a minimal ammount of time of bonding and proper care before hoisting them off on daycare. This problem also forces employers to be skeptical of ALL WOMEN of childbearing age when making employment decisions. To say that having a child is not market driven is bunk because the REACTION of the market affects all women of childbearing age.
If we had such coverage women would have a stronger chance of getting and retaining high paying professional positions and the increased tax revinue would be great on the economy, like I have said before, probably offsetting some of the cost of running such a program.
The program I envision would just be enough to cusion the blow and work on a very progressive scale based on a number of factors including salary, number of children, time betwen pregnecies, and how long the mother chooses to be away from work. For births more than 24 months apart for the first two children if the mother or father wants to take 6 months there should be support up to 100% of thier salary ( for people at the poverty level ). For those who have more, want to take more time, make more than the poverty level, …. the ammount of salary replacement would be less. Companies would be required to take the parent back up to a year later with the same or an equivilant job ( companies less than 50 would have diffrent rules ). Parents who wish to take more than a year would stll have salary replacement, but job security would be gone.
Raimo 03.29.05 at 9:52 am
“However, if paid paternity leave was offered under the same conditions, any competitive disadvantage to women in the workplace would be eliminated. It would be interesting to learn what the French and Finnish experiences in this area have shown.”
The only place I know for sure this happens is Norway. If I remember right, they can take up to 52 weeks at 80% of earnings, or 42 weeks at 100% – and either father or mother can take or, or they can split it between them. From what I’ve heard, it’s a success.
In Finland we have a different arrangement: the woman can take up to nine months, and the man gets up to 18 days. An interesting difference between FI/NO (unless they’ve changed it) is that in Finland, the law does not force an employer to compensate the father during paternity leave. However, most employers do pay, because unions have negotiated this with companies.
MrX 03.29.05 at 10:17 am
The owners of the United States have advanced the science of controlling the masses to an unprecedented level. Very simply, the average American working class citizen now identifies far more with “consumer” than with “labor”. Being pro-consumer now means pro-business, since any attempt to interfere with the profitability of business is portrayed as a threat to the economy.
These guys are good!
Nabakov 03.29.05 at 10:37 am
As far as I see, us first world countries are already doing pretty well by global standards. I don’t care if our GDP per capita slips slightly ‘cos of maternity leave – so we can enjoy more of our lives better. Hands up who else would throw their plasma TV out the window for a four day weekend?
Thought so.
Remember we work to live, not the other way around
joel turnipseed 03.29.05 at 10:53 am
nabokov –
I don’t have a plasma tv, I have a Wega tube HDTV (200lbs, but wayyyyyy better picture)–so I couldn’t toss it out the window if I tried. But that’s beside the point: if we had rational health care policies in this country (US) our corporations could afford to be more competitive, and our government spending could be better targeted, including the subsidization of parental leave, family education, and full-time day care–without jeopardizing our raw GDP numbers.
As for life/work, I’m a stay-at-home dad/writer now & there is, my library excepted, no distinction: but even when I was in software, I never thought of my job as “work” — isn’t there something in Arendt’s “Human Condition” about ‘labor’ vs. ‘work,’ where the former speaks to who we are (or rather, we speak ourselves through it)? I don’t find fifty hours a week of that too daunting–in fact, it was exhilirating.
Kieran Healy 03.29.05 at 10:59 am
_I’m a stay-at-home dad/writer now_
Hey, 27 comments in and a bit of acknowledgment that women do not reproduce by binary fission.
mcm 03.29.05 at 11:14 am
I agree that the US is at odds with most of the industrialized world when it comes to parental leave and child care. But quite apart from the relative strength/weakness of unions, I think a lot of the difference stems from differing levels of concern over the economic impact of declining birth rates. Here in the US the production of people is either seen as a given, a natural process that falls outside the bounds of economics and policy-making, or, increasingly, as an optional extra, an individual lifestyle choice for which nobody but those foolish enough to choose it bear any responsibility. Things begin to look a bit different when population levels dip below replacement level (as they have all over Europe and in Japan). It seems it’s only when women stop having children that policy makers begin to recognize the “production of people” as a crucial base of the economy.
See, for example, this article on the town in Japan that is offering money to women who have a third child:
“As the country’s birthrate declines, demographers have predicted Japan’s population will peak at about 127.7 million next year and fall rapidly over the next half-century to about 100 million.
The situation is raising concerns about how future generations will support the growing ranks of elderly and how businesses will survive as the labor pool shrinks.”
Javier 03.29.05 at 11:30 am
if we had rational health care policies in this country…
If by “rational” you mean socialized/state-run health care then I don’t think so. Yes, health care would probably be cheaper than the quasi-market system that is currently in place, but then we would see an end to a massive amount of technological and pharmecutical innovation that is driven by the private sector and the profit motivate.
Europe is currently a big free-rider on the innovations of American pharmecutical companies. In the words of Jean-Francois Dehecq, head of the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo:
Step by step, the profitability of European markets is decreasing, and we’re depending on the U.S. more and more…every year we increase prices a little in the U.S. and each year we have to decrease a little in Euorpe [because of price controls]…After a few years down the line, it’s a disaster
Europe certainly hopes that the U.S. never adopts rational health care policies.
Raimo 03.29.05 at 12:10 pm
“…we would see an end to a massive amount of technological and pharmecutical innovation that is driven by the private sector and the profit motivate.”
javier, I have a question for you: how much of that US research is subsidised? It’s qute a lot, isn’t it.
joel turnipseed 03.29.05 at 12:18 pm
javier –
I think you put a bit too much trust in the “profit motive” for both human happiness and technological innovation. Biotech is inherently fascinating (perhaps the most-fascinating current entrepreneurial sphere), and it would attract many innovators (possibly open-source) if all the major pharma just up and disappeared, devolving their patents to their respective governments’ health services. As for those companies complaining, I would like to look at their P&L and see what the ratio of research to marketing (direct COS is very high–reps/support not cheap, as is marketing–oh, to be rid of those damned Levitra ads!) costs are: my guess, knowing people who work throughout that industry, is that a “quasi-market” system that a) spread risk and b) efficiently-allocated costs among society would provide enough relief from top-line costs to keep the bottom-line pretty healthy. Also, a bit more circumspection regarding profit might save them some legal costs, cf. Cox-2 lawsuits.
I think the “shared risk” meme is one the Left in the US could make a lot of hay with, on a whole host of issues and, pace, Kieran’s remark, it’s amazing to me that we don’t think more about the ways in which we already do this: my wife and I negotiated risk of me leaving my CTO post to become full-time writer after quasi-success of my first book, knowing that we were pushing the envelope on our child-bearing years. From both moral and financial standpoint, sexism (especially) makes no sense (you’re cheating your wife out of income) and neither does our current model of restricted risk: from GM/Ford competitive problems w/r/t healthcare (a 1200-1500 per car cost disadvantage to Japanese) to entrepreneurial hires (there were two people I really wanted but couldn’t afford/encourage to take risk because they had multiple children and stay-at-home wives), a better system of health care, child care, and education delivery would, I think, be better for US business competitiveness than the hokum bullshit we pretend makes us “competitive” now.
Walt Pohl 03.29.05 at 12:23 pm
Javier: 100% of us have already heard this argument, and either we’re convinced by it or we’re not. Please don’t bore us with repetition.
Joe 03.29.05 at 12:49 pm
This discussion seems to focus almost entirely on the first 3-12 months of a child’s life, as if that were all that is necessary to raise a child. OK, let mom or dad be home for that time period. But the deeper problem is that we set no value upon the continuation of parenting throughout the 18 years of childhood. A parent at home is arguably more important in the teenage years. Does anyone propose a “teenage child leave” lasting, say, 5 years? Or maybe the most important time is the early school years, when self-esteem is developed or lost. Or the pre-adoleschent years. Let’s just pay one parent to stay home full time. (Wait, we used to do that by paying the father enough to let the mother stay home.) Come on. The problem is primarily our self-identification with our jobs and our social class, read net-family-income, that causes us to sacrifice little Johnny for that newer SUV, the boat, the HDTV, the whole consumerist hoard.
Nabakov 03.29.05 at 1:30 pm
Joel, I’m with you here.
My point is quality of life is not a quantative thing. It’s a goofing off with yer kids, gone fishing with mates, slipping away for a dirty weekend kinda thing. I think we’d all (that’s all of us with work that pays well but is constantly squeezed by deadlines and extended by overtime to get things done) take a 10% cut in income for 10% more time with loved and lusted after ones.
And all first world countries are rich enough to afford this. I mean heated towel rails, gourmet pet food, and 12 brands of toilet paper?
And Xaxier…
“Europe is currently a big free-rider on the innovations of American pharmecutical companies. ”
Sounds great to me. Why bust a gut when someone else is doing it for you? You think America would behave any differently if the situation was reversed? After all the US’s chemical industry cruised off the hard work of the IG Farben cartel for a good couple of decades after the whole post-WWII Operation Paperclip thang.
I’m always suprised at how unworldy the so-called economic rationalists really are.
Javier 03.29.05 at 1:35 pm
Okay, I don’t mean to take this thread far off topic, but just a few remarks:
javier, I have a question for you: how much of that US research is subsidised? It’s qute a lot, isn’t it.
Sure alot of research is subsidised. That’s all to the good–I’m in favor of greater government spending on R&D. But a great deal of research is also privately generated. More government run health care would mean less privately generated innovation.
Joel–I’m not sure what alternative you’re suggesting. Perhaps I could comment if I knew more about what you meant.
Walt–so because an argument has been used before, it can’t be used again? Huh. Well whatever. I’ll argue what I want to argue, so there. I hope that’s grown up enough for you.
Javier 03.29.05 at 1:38 pm
Sounds great to me. Why bust a gut when someone else is doing it for you? You think America would behave any differently if the situation was reversed?
No, I wouldn’t expect America to behave any differently. So what’s the point?
Jeremy Osner 03.29.05 at 1:54 pm
I keep seeing the notion that Europe and Canada free-ride on American health care innovation brought forward as an argument agains ourselves nationalizing health care when it seems to me to show the exact opposite: if we are being free-ridden upon, the rational thing is to do something about it, and the obvious candidate I see is to adopt the policies of the free-riders. If the argument is correct, that will result in a falling-off in medical innovation; a bad result certainly. But assuming that medical innovation is valuable, then the consumers (America, Canada, European nations) are going to have to pay more than they are currently, presumably through a combination of subsidies and more generous health plans. If they do not do so, it means that medical innovation is not as highly valued as we thought. Either way ends up better than the U.S. paying a premium and Canada and Europe getting a discount on the innovation.
Raimo 03.29.05 at 1:56 pm
“Sure a lot of research is subsidised. That’s all to the good—I’m in favor of greater government spending on R&D.”
Ok javier, I like it too. All countries should pay for research. Meaning any advanced country that doesn’t should be ashamed,
But if the public is paying for pharma research, it’s only possible to invoke “profit motive for research” to a proportionate extent.
Can I give you an alternative translation for your Jean-Francois Dehecq quote:
“We’re pissed off, because we don’t make double-digit profit increases any more, and our bonuses suffer. We’re deliberately saying we rip off innocent Americans in the hope they will “educate” the Europeans.”
mw 03.29.05 at 2:14 pm
From my perspective, the nice thing about the American approach to parental leave and child-care is that it is compatible with America’s cultural diversity, it permits experimentation, and it accomodates cultural change.
There is no consensus in the U.S. about childcare, whether best provided by stay-at-home mother or by a stay-at-home parent (either one), or by some combination of parents working part time, or by relatives, or in a small, home-based daycare or in a larger, formal pre-school style daycare, or perhaps in a church-based center. If the government tried to enact policies favoring particular approaches (say, mandatory paid maternity leave and subsidized state-run childcare centers), there would be a political revolt–and for good reason. Which is why it won’t happen.
Those comitted to stay-at-home parenting for pre-schoolers are not going to want to subsidize those who opt for full-time child-care. And those who prefer informal arrangments for childcare (e.g. grandparents) again, won’t want to (and currently don’t have to) subsidize those who want formal, full-time daycare.
Similarly, the relations between the sexes are not cast in law in the U.S. Currently, there is no difference between maternal and paternal leave policies–it’s parental leave and either parent can take it. And this is not a moot point–although obviously less common, it is not at all unheard of for families where the dad earns less to have him stay home and care for young children. It’s not clear how far this cultural change will go, but it seems that it would be much less likely to happen with a Euro-style ‘progressive’ policy that codified sex role differences in law.
That said, I think there’s a good case to be made for, say, increasing the tax deductions for preschool aged children, enabling families to use this they choose (to help pay for childcard at a center OR to help defray the cost of a parent staying home).
I have to say that it won’t shock me if, as the cultural homogeneity of European countries fades with increased immigration of minorities with very different cultural values, Europe may find itself adopting more laissez faire policies to accomodate the range of values in increasingly diverse populations. As ‘Mohammed’ inexorably climbs the ranks of popular baby names, a one-size-fits-all policy for leave and child care may no longer work.
joel turnipseed 03.29.05 at 2:17 pm
Javier –
The point I was making w/r/t to the “innovation” argument was: it simply, historically and humanly, doesn’t hold. Nabokov’s comments noted, I’ll use the example of Norbert Wiener, who made tremendous contributions to telecommunications/computing (AT&T scammed him; he invented Von Neumann model before Gentleman Johnny) and who didn’t innovate out of the profit motive: he did it because the subjects fascinated him. Regarding pharma & larger ecosystem of med/biotech, I think the following:
1) It is an established fact that the difference in percentage of GDP spent on healthcare between the US and Europe is enormous–amounting to something like 3-5 percent of US GDP in the gap. That’s a lot of money…hundreds of billions.
2) Our “competitive” system of health care not only a) rations (according to who can afford) but b) restricts market and c) relies too-heavily on sales/marketing as a function of profit (not to mention creating, frequently, social disvalue).
3) On a macroeconomic level, sharing risk most-widely is always advantageous (economists: correct me if I’m wrong); on a micro-economic level, lowering the individual exposure to risk allows them to maximize their risk-taking behavior–one function of which would be, say, to allow them to attempt innovation with less burden of failure.
Which leads me to point that I didn’t get across clearly enough earlier:
4) A sensible national healthcare policy could find plenty of room for innovation coming out of major research universities–all of whom, btw, have provosts/VPs in tech transfer who are on first-name basis with major venture capitalists/corporate development teams: more or less giving away tech on the capital side, and that only after it’s been paid for by multiple channels of state funding for said institutions–where that innovation is much more likely to be undertaken for its own sake and much more likely to be sensibly peer-reviewed and with the increase in market penetration, lowered development costs, and less reliance on direct sales/marketing, still create a healthy P&L for pharma/med/biotech corporations… all this, while spreading costs/risks across businesses (I don’t think it’s appreciated how stifling a wide variety of the US’s “corporate welfare” policies are to our economy), allowing them to move more freely on personnel levels/giving them more bottom-line relief from labor costs while also satisfying requirements for a fluid labor market and humane moral code: that no one should worry about access to health care.
To come back to Kimberly’s excellent post, it really is astonishing how little attention is paid, politically, to strategies regarding education, child care, health care, workplace mobility, and discrimination that on the face of it seem “free market” but which actually create a lot of unnecessary turbulence/risk, not to mention CYA inefficiencies, social disorder, and moral rot from greed and envy: all of which restrain, not encourage, human development and a flourishing society.
Thomas 03.29.05 at 2:24 pm
mw, I agree completely with policy proposals you suggest, and also with the reasons and values that inform them.
Which, again, leaves us with the question: Given that there are other approaches that are politically feasible and which solve the problems of parents, why aren’t those the means suggested?
One possibility is that solving the problems of parents isn’t the intention, or, at least, it isn’t the only thing intended.
Kimmitt 03.29.05 at 2:43 pm
You want to have a kid? Great, just don’t expect everyone else to support you.
Egad, what’s the point of even having a society if it isn’t in the business of supporting parents and childrearing?
mw 03.29.05 at 2:48 pm
Which, again, leaves us with the question: Given that there are other approaches that are politically feasible and which solve the problems of parents, why aren’t those the means suggested?
One possibility is that solving the problems of parents isn’t the intention, or, at least, it isn’t the only thing intended.
That’s a good question–why is nobody proposing raising the dependent credit for preschool aged children? There is already a child-care tax credit, but that does nothing for stay-at-home parents.
Replacing the child-care tax credit with a more generous dependent deduction for young children seems like it could be a great idea for Democrats to pursue–a progressive idea that would win them points for tax-cutting, for proposing child-friendly policies, AND for pushing a policy that religious types committed to stay-at-home parenting would love.
Who wouldn’t love it? Maybe the childcare ‘industry’ wouldn’t since the benefit would be for all families with preschool children, not just those spending money at approved centers. But other than that, it ought to be very popular.
donna 03.29.05 at 3:38 pm
“You want to have a kid? Great, just don’t expect everyone else to support you.”
Um, who exactly do you think everyone else is?
You want to live in a society with other people? Great, don’t expect people not to have kids and need the community’s support to do so. Otherwise, go live in a damn cave and quit sponging off the rest of society.
mw 03.29.05 at 4:38 pm
To say that pregnancy is not market driven is ignoring the obvious. Don’t people see that a woman who wants to be good to their children and take more than 3 months of unpaid leave is basicly forbiden from carring a decent salary in the market.
Hmmm. That’s funny–I know a lot of well-paid, successful professional women (physicians, lawyers, professors, teachers) with school-aged children who took time off time when their children were very young. Some men, too (myself and my wife included as a matter of fact). This is, in fact, probably a good bit easier for professionals in the U.S. than those earning less ‘decent’ salaries.
It is true that it is hard to reach the very top ranks of many professions while doing that–but most of the professional women AND men I know (myself and my wife included) don’t care–it’s not worth years of obsessive, single-minded drugery to get from a well-paid interesting career to an all-consuming CEO level position that pays more money…that you don’t have time to enjoy.
ChrisPer 03.30.05 at 3:19 am
The wording of Kimerly’s original post interests me; are you saying parents do not have organisation or activism? And I presume a ‘sensible conversation’ is one held on terms defined by – who exactly?
If you want to get family-friendly, we in Australia could use some relief such as sharing income across the number of dependants. Don’t do it bureaucratically; a simple division in calculating the tax rate will be fine.
We have a structure here where losing ‘welfare’ entitlements as your income rises create strong political backlashes as a parent takes a job, and as a single-income family rises past the median income.
There is a tax concession for dependent spouse with NO children, but not for one with children; that was converted into a direct payment to the child carer spouse. Since I already give my entire income into my family’s hands, I experience this as offensive political interference in my life.
monica v 03.30.05 at 10:00 am
Just wanted to add something that was probably implied, seems to me in Europe the idea of maternity and parental leaves and childcare and flexible working hours etc. is not only or mainly a concern of union and left party politics, it’s just a more widely accepted principle across political divides. Particularly in countries that also had centre-right Christian Democrat parties, that traditionally also favoured welfare also for health care and education and so on. That’s always been a different brand of social conservatives than in the US, especially in economic matters like these.
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