[door3]

Women are paid less not because their jobs are worth less, but because employers can get away with paying them leas. There are values other than market value. Society needs both nurses and engineers. Women and men should be equal not just in opportunity, but in outcome (ie, economic power).

In addition, women are usually the primary caregiver and disproportionately spend more time doing domestic labour (raising children, taking care of the home) which they are not compensated financially for. Women (or whomever is the primary caregiver in a family or does more domestic labor at home) should be paid more for fewer hours in the workplace.

[dang]

You've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not what this site is for, and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of which ideology they favor. This is in the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). If you would read them and use HN as intended, we'd appreciate it.

More explanation, for anyone who wants it, is at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402648, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16185062, and plenty more at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

[jabot]

> Society needs both nurses and engineers.

Yes. And if more people want to become engineers, and if becoming an engineer is easier, then engineers will end up getting less money than nurses.

I mean... the more fun a job is, the more people will want to do it despite getting little money, right?

> In addition, women are usually the primary caregiver and disproportionately spend more time doing domestic labour (raising children, taking care of the home) which they are not compensated financially for.

I recall reading some statistics that (in germany) 80% of domestic spending is done by women. Seems about right.

> Women should be paid more for fewer hours in the workplace.

Uh. That's outright discrimination there. Either against men or against childless people.

[hackerman12345]

A good manager is expected to give an easier schedule to someone who is caring for a sick family member, why would it be horrible to give an easier schedule to someone who has to spend a lot of time taking care of a new baby?

Biology has already discriminated and made her life hard, should we make it worse? Should we make having children as difficult as possible for our fellow citizens?

Paternal leave is important too.

[Gerardo1]

"Women (or whomever is the primary caregiver in a family or does more domestic labor at home) should be paid more for fewer hours in the workplace."

I think you have to work a bit more to support that assertion. I'm not opposed to the idea of some kind of compensation for home-makers, but putting that on employers seems backwards. Why should that not be a form of social support?

[door3]

I’m speaking on the level of principle, not implementation. There are a variety of ways you could implement this, but I think that is a secondary question to the basic principle that donestic labor exists, is socially necessary, and is, unjustly, not compensated financially. Most people in this debate, even left-leaning people, don’t acknowledge that.

[fjsolwmv]

If a homemaker is married, they are compensated by their partner (including alimony and child support after divorce). If a homemaker is single, they receive charity from government.

[door3]

Some, but not enough. Men and women should be absolutely equal in terms of economic power, they currently are not.

[erkkie]

That's a strong statement with zero backing. Who else should be equal?

This experiment has been tried and it failed miserably, read up on the Soviet Union.

[burntwater]

"Women (or whomever is the primary caregiver in a family or does more domestic labor at home) should be paid more for fewer hours in the workplace."

Why should anyone be compensated anything for routine life-management work? What you're asking is akin to saying everyone should be paid to sleep. Sleeping, bathing, eating, maintaining the home -- these are all parts of functioning as a human. Taking care of children is a function of having chosen to have offspring - I would say it's a voluntary hobby, even.

[Frondo]

As a proponent of a universal basic income, I would agree that yes, you should also be paid for sleep.

[burntwater]

And under a plan where EVERYONE equally receives that UBI, I can see how you can say it's "being paid to sleep."

Under a plan where people are being paid unequal amounts simply for being alive, that's where it's wrong.

[door3]

Raising a child is not just "being alive". It requires a tremendous amount of uncompensated labor.

[door3]

Because unless you’re an antinatalist, some people having children is socially necessary. If the next generation had no children, society would collapse. Also, many women have unplanned pregnancies.

[Mononokay]

> Because unless you’re an antinatalist, some people having children is socially necessary. If the next generation had no children, society would collapse. Also, many women have unplanned pregnancies.

And that's the fault of the employer . . . how? If they have a child, it shouldn't be subsidized by their employer. Everyone in the West could abstain from having children for three generations and immigrants would make up the numbers - there's no need for most people to have children.

[burntwater]

Society would shrink, it would not collapse.

Pregnancy is a natural consequence of sex. There's no such thing as a truly unexpected pregnancy. Undesired and unplanned perhaps, but not unexpected. In the event it does happen, there are options for either continuing or ending the pregnancy, I still see no reason why anyone should be compensated for voluntarily choosing to continue the pregnancy.

[door3]

I guess "people that aren't rich have the right to comfortably raise a family" is an axiom that I had that I didn't really expect to have to defend.

[olavk]

If women had to be paid more for the same job, it would be irrational for any business to hire women.

[Reedx]

Likewise, if businesses could hire women for an N% discount on labor costs, they would hire only women.

[door3]

There’s a lot of things that are irrational to an employer, ie providing health insurance or limiting the hours their employees work. Fortunately labor laws exist and are enforced. And just to emphasize, I said the primary caregiver, who is usually but not slways a woman.

[fjsolwmv]

Employer provided healthcare is insane and is leftover from ecomic-distorting policies of WWII.

[door3]

Well yea, healthcare should be a right of all people and not contingent upon employment but that wasn’t really my point

[sudoke]

Healthcare requires the time and resources of healthcare professionals, and no one has the RIGHT to the time or resources of other people. We abolished slavery in this country, I'm sick of people like you arguing to bring it back.

[dang]

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Would you please not create accounts to do that with?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html