[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Yelof

Both parents should have the right to leave in order to facilitate pregnancy, give birth and provide personal care for their child in the crucial first few month's of Babies development. Personally I live the system where a couple is awarded a joint amount of time off and they decide how best how to distribute it. Employers should not be out of pocket on this or else informal forms of discrimination with arise and make the measure counter productive. The cost should be social, we all should pay from our taxes to enable people to best raise their children while not destroying their career.

The benifits to society are to encourage parents to spend time with their children, early bonding with both parents has been shown to increase later adult emotional stability, which has to be good for society. By guarenteeing that a mother keeps her job after spending time having a child it increases the chances that she will return to the workforce, thereby not wasting her education that is usually furnished at social cost. By compensating the employers it encourages them to hire replacements thus reducing employment. Without children society would not exist, being a women or a man is a lottery, we should be oblidged to provide social insurance to cover what is a cost of being human. It would really be little for what we get in return

They do that at competing businesses in China, don't they?