[blindriver]

Japan requires photos of woman on their resumes, and their age. Japanese employers don't like hiring women who are in their child-bearing ages because they might get pregnant.

Say what you want about the US, but the level of protection workers have is so much better than most other countries.

[slily]

They don't "require photos of woman", passport-style portrait photos are standard period. It's really no different from LinkedIn being the standard in Western countries where you're suspicious if you don't have a personal photo on your profile and where you can just as easily be discriminated against based on your looks or whatever other criteria you can think of. The only difference is that they'll use euphemisms or outright bullshit you, if they even bother getting back to you about your application.

[jalapenos]

Bit disingenuous wording - they don't exclude men from photos & age.

The US has summary firing. In Japan if you're a permanent employee you can reasonably expect to remain so.

From the people pissing in bottles at Amazon your protections don't sound any better.

Hiring discrimination against child bearing aged women is universal - it's just in the US they have to be more careful how they do it.

[gyomu]

Yep. I once had the CEO of an early stage, venture backed SF startup I worked for confide to me:

“you know, every time we interview a woman in her late 20s/early 30s, I just have to wonder if she’ll take maternity leave 6 months in to working with us. As a startup we just can’t afford that”.

Of course the public face of the company was all about fighting inequality, supporting diversity, etc.

[gnu8]

I wonder if that CEO was dropped on his head as a child or what else might have been wrong with him to have such a bizarrely spiteful attitude towards humans, and I would have asked him that. People with that type of attitude need to be confronted wherever they are found whenever they express something that fucking stupid. Hopefully he was able to mend his ways.

[jj999]

Being angry about this only hurts your chance of understanding why one will think this way and enact change.

[Gibbon1]

Yeah that's spot on because like nope never have I had a male friend go now that my wife and I have a kid what I need is more money and flexible work hours. So bye. Okay I'm breaking the site guidelines because every man I knew at my age has done that.

[stackedinserter]

But startups really can't afford it, what else can they do?

[callalex]

Civilized governments pay the mother’s current salary for a set period of time. Is a great idea.

[Dalewyn]

The cost isn't just about things money can compensate. A new mother on maternity leave (or father on paternity leave for that matter) is:

* Not undergoing training (if applicable, eg: a new hire).

* Not gaining and maintaining experience and knowledge in the field.

* Not making business connections with others in the industry and elsewhere.

* Not keeping up (in regards to new standards and ways of doing) with her workplace and the industry at large; IT industries especially so.

* Not providing her manpower, which must be compensated by another employee(s) who can't just be fired or transferred away when (or if) she returns.

Basically, the overhead of accomodating and compensating for employees that maek babby is simply unacceptable for many businesses, especially the smaller ones and particularly if the babby is had very early in their employment or career.

You might say this is sexism and discrimination (even though it's not; childbirth is a choice to be made), but this is the cold harsh reality. People who agree to be employed are expected to work, not maek babby.

This is also a reason for falling birthrates: More people just want to live and work without the sacrifices demanded by childbirth and rearing. They know their life or career they have or dream of could end right there if they choose to have children.

[helij]

Harsh reality only if you're making this world to be business first instead of human first.

[vhcr]

Insurance?

[zeroCalories]

You can't insure against losing someone important in the early days of a startup. You lose the context and knowledge invested into the person, and replacing them will take time, which is even more valuable for a startup. Sure, things don't matter at a megacorp that has enough of a buffer to weather these leaves, but I'm sympathetic to startups that don't want to hire women. I don't know what the solution is, but it can't involve maternity leave. Maybe the state should provide free daycare so that the women can get right back to work.

[Dalewyn]

It's not just startups.

Airline companies of all sizes are really hesitant to hire women pilots, because training and certifying pilots is fucking expensive in both money and time. They really do not want to invest in a new pilot only for her (or him, for that matter) to say "Yeah, I'm quitting/taking leave for my new baby." and have to write off their investment that could have gone to another would-be pilot who would fly with them for many decades.

[burnished]

Is that a real thing or are you just guessing?

I'm trying to imagine an insurance policy that a) protects against financial losses related to losing a pivotal member and b) pays out because they got pregnant, and it sounds insane.