You are, obviously, completely correct on the point that you raise. However, I am sold on those sort of laws on the basis that employers are discriminating on irrelevant dimensions, like race and gender.

An employee expecting, or indeed planning, to take a X months leave Y months after joining, with X > Y, isn't an irrelevant dimension. Especially if parental leave is paid, but I don't know if that is how the US handles leave.

An employee literally cannot be a high quality, productive worker if they are not working. Employers should not be forced to ignore relevant factors when hiring. That isn't fair on them.

While we're at it, why shouldn't any prospective employee with a health condition that might require extensive time off be required to disclose that? And, since people aren't often the best judge of their health conditions and the impositions they'll make on future employers, perhaps it'd be better if we all just disclosed our complete medical records along with our job applications.

Well, philosophically, at some point yes. There should be some level of personal responsibility not to sign up for a job that you don't intend to do. I don't think being required to provide detailed medical records is reasonable, a good faith, optimistic best-case is enough for me.

And while you might see pregnancy as equivalent to having a medical condition there are actually a number of fairly important differences. For example, in the modern era, pregnancy is more controllable than illness. Quite a number of people enthusiastically plan on it. Those aspects, intent and control, are important for determining who should bear the cost. The cost should not settle on an unwitting employer looking for a new hire.

I have a health condition which causes me to be suddenly absent for a week at a time 1-4 times a year. I absolutely disclose this to any prospective employer because I don’t want them to grumble when it happens.

It points to the state sponsored solution. If a single employer is supposed to carry the burden then they will obviously want to hire young healthy men above anyone else.

Fortunately this is exactly how it's implemented in most European countries: if the employee is not working the employer doesn't pay. The (usually state run) insurer does.

Requiring businesses to pay for someone taking time to care of their children is patently stupid and unjust and there is fully justified pushback against such laws.

"Employers should not be forced to ignore relevant factors when hiring."

But they are - that's the law. The same legal system that allows the corporation to exist at all and earn money in this environment requires them to ignore the fact that someone may be going on maternal leave and not discriminate based on it.

We the voters have decided that this is more important than the profits of any company, and in the end the voters (i.e. mostly employees) get to decide the rules of society, not the companies.

Let's try a re-frame. This isn't necessarily how I'd prefer to argue, but it might be a more productive way to explain the point to some people.

In the United States, there are many people who are in the reserve of the military, or in the National Guard. They often need to take some amount of time away from work for regular training and refresher sessions with the rest of their unit, in order to stay ready for wartime or domestic-emergency (since they also play a large role in responses to natural disasters) duty.

As a society, we've decided this is important enough to our future security to make it illegal to discriminate in hiring against someone who has obligations as a member of the reserves or National Guard, illegal to fire them for taking time away from work to fulfill those obligations, and illegal to force them to use their ordinary vacation time to cover that time away. And even if a reservist or Guard is called to extended active service, they have the right to return to their previous employer so long as that service does not exceed five years.

We've made that choice because, for each individual employer, the temptation is strong to let some other sucker hold a spot for a Guard or reservist, and not waste any of your business' money on them. Which is a tragedy of the commons situation.

Children are similarly an issue of security for our society. There is significantly less point to building things today, if nobody will be around tomorrow. So we, as a society, have also decided that employers cannot discriminate on the basis of choosing to have children.

You seem to have a problem with the second of these. Do you also have a problem with the first? If so, how do you find a consistent position that reaches those two different conclusions?

If society agrees your employee is doing something more important than work, fine, but then society should compensate you rather than demanding you take it in the shorts (and all the ugly incentives that creates).

If you disagree that this is a useful thing, you can move to a society which shares your views.

If your attitude is purely one of "don't use any of my money to do this", well, a government-run compensation system would be tax-funded and would use... some of your money. In fact, it would probably just be implemented similarly to employer payroll taxes, so it would mean you'd get to pay into it even if you somehow manage never to have an employee who has a child. Then you could complain about paying into a system that's not paying back out to you!

Or you could just learn to deal with the price of living in a civilized society, and accept that while this may be one specific benefit you'll never take advantage of, there are plenty of benefits you do get to take advantage of, that perhaps others don't, and that they pay into them regardless.

(and that's without considering that hiring and onboarding replacement employees is expensive, too, if your policy is to fire/not hire people who choose to have children, so please be sure to consider that as one of your costs)

That's what I'm arguing for, the burden should fall fairly across all taxpayers rather than solely upon the hapless employers who ignored the massive incentives to discriminate against soldiers and parents.

Does the company have a paid leave policy? Does said policy restrict when this paid leave can be taken in respect to hiring date? If people follow company policy, then why are you complaining again?

Companies aren't required to make maternity leave available to new hires immediately, or to pay for it. They simply aren't allowed to make employment decisions based on pregnancy status or plans.

I literally just did this — my wife is 9 months pregnant and I told them during the interview and was assured that my taking leave right away wouldn’t be a problem.

Because they are not wretched at risk analysis. They have at least a child’s understanding that humans are not machines, and there is a high variability in week to week performance, but overall the humans are a net gain.

Basically the same reasons you don’t invest in the 100% returns every year “investment opportunity”

Cuz it’s the law. Also, statistically it comes out in the wash.

You are making my argument for me. Thank you.

A company doesn't just exist for the benefit of its shareholders. It exists for the benefit of society and its employees.

And quite crying about down-votes.

Well... not really. In the sense that shareholders can sue a corporation they own if the management is not acting in their best interest while society cannot, a corporations main purpose is to provide profit to shareholders

Laws are precisely how society imposes its concerns on corporations. The concept of a corporation only exists in the first place because society decided such a thing was useful. The purpose of corporations is whatever society decides it is.

I agree with you. I was stating current reality, not making a moral statement