It’s because when you hire employees they come with the aspect of being “people”. People work to live, they don’t live to work.

This has the very very close connotation to "from each according to ability to each according to need"

I live a very frugle life, my expenses are low, I have no kids, I dont take expensive vacations, drive a fancy car, etc...

So should that mean I do not get time off, or high raises, etc simply because my "needs" are not the same as a co-worker?

Why should a co-workers personal life choices (i.e the choice to have 1 or more children) be a factor in the terms of their employment?

I think employment policies should be agnostic to the personal life choices and situations of employee's infact the employer should not even know if you have kids or not, let alone provide you with "extra" because you do

Sounds like you would support a policy of income based on your personal expenses. Should the programmer with 5 kids make more than the programmer with no kids simply because the programmer with kids has more expenses?

Maybe you should talk to your boss and ask for more, instead complaining about others.

I am in the US and I do pick my employers based on these kinds of policies because their is no government mandate.

Considering having children is beneficial to society and the economy (e.g. it's advantageous for employers since they still want to be able to hire people in n years and surely they'd like there to still be customers) one could argue that the programmer with five kids should get some "compensation" for this service, and as we know some countries do either directly or via employers.

> Should the programmer with 5 kids make more than the programmer with no kids simply because the programmer with kids has more expenses?

The programmer with 5 kids does make more than the one with no kids because he pays fewer income taxes. So the answer to your question is yes: it's how it already works.

No my question was should they. I also disagree with the Child tax credit.

> Sounds like you would support a policy of income based on your personal expenses. Should the programmer with 5 kids make more than the programmer with no kids simply because the programmer with kids has more expenses?

First time in Europe? That's pretty much a given here, more kids = bigger tax break = more netto pay.

> How is paying employees to sit at home not working anything other than charity

They are not sitting at home doing nothing, they are raising children. Helping them to do that is companies' share of investment into the workforce of tomorrow. Your utilitarian "fair" worldview doesn't account for the fact that having kids is insanely profitable to the economy.

Where do new employees came from? Do they materialize adult and fully educated out of thin air? Society-wise new workers are born and raised from preexisting workers. If corporations don't bear some of this burden in minting new employees, they are free-riding.

Those are operational costs. They are part of the costs the company has to support in order to have access to that country's labour market. If the company is unable to compete in that market they are, of course, most welcome to leave this market and go operate in some other lawless country.

Well you're actually paid a fraction of every X dollars of value you produce