The article puts a strong emphasis in how (truly) flexible schedules benefit women but I think it applies just as well to men, particularly once you have children.
Indeed. The article cites the stigma of being the woman who can't come in to work because her child threw up -- but there's far more stigma attached to being the man who can't come in to work because his child threw up.
I remember reading (found it: [0]) that men tend to lie about these situations and claim they have something not-childcare-related to do, whereas women are more likely to be honest about the reason for their absence.
That's fascinating. I wonder if it's true of absences from the workforce, as well.
My suspicion is that "adventurous" reasons for taking time away from a typical career path--playing professional poker, sailing around the world, touring with a band--are rewarded in the job search, especially in men, while reasons like child or elder care are punished, especially in women.
I'm not convinced that reflects who's actually going to be a valuable, committed employee.
> there's far more stigma attached to being the man who can't come in to work because his child threw up.
I'm pretty spoiled ("privileged" might be a more accurate term), but I've called out fairly often due to having a much better time off policy than my wife - so when the kid is sick and can't go to daycare, I tend to pick up 75%+ of the stay-home time with her. I've never had a problem at work, and other dads at work have done the same thing.
I literally can't imagine someone giving me shit about it, or a coworker suggesting that it's the woman's/mom's job to stay home with a sick child. I guess it's different in non-software fields?
You're lucky to have such an enlightened workplace. There are many companies where fathers are officially allowed to take parental leave or work flexible hours, but in practice everybody knows that those are really just for women; the fact that men are allowed to make use of those options and people don't say anything doesn't necessarily mean that they don't quietly write off child-caring men as being unreliable or uncommitted.
I don't have any data on flexible work hours, but in 2011 a study found that only 4% of new fathers took over 2 weeks of parental leave. This is why it was so important when Zuckerberg took two months of parental leave -- it set an example and communicated to the company "men taking parental leave is normal".
If shit were given to me about staying home with my sick child this is what I say: "If you'd like to stay home with my child I'll make it in or if you really want me in today I can make it if I bring my child in too. What's that? You don't want to get sick? That's what I thought. I'll be staying at home with my sick child today."
Precisely. The flexibility would be helpful irrespective of gender. It says a lot about our culture (or lack thereof) that we even have this issue to start with.
When people followed the gender roles of "women stay home and raise children; men leave their kids behind and go to work", neither gender had much overlap between employment and child care.
Societal acceptance of men as performing child care lags behind societal acceptance of women as performing paid employment, so it's inevitable that the issues inherent in combining child care and paid employment have hit women first. It's important to raise awareness that this is an issue which affects both genders, but I wouldn't ascribe any malice to the fact that it first gained attention as an issue affecting women.
> If that's true, then this might just be lazy reporting?
It's not easy to tell the difference, given that it will pretty much always be easier for them to spin a press release into an article than to find something to write about.
Good eye. 20 paragraphs and 11 mentions of the website. Native advertising, but it does bring up a good point. Though I think overstated in its effectiveness.
In some jobs, this just isn't practical. I know of a law firm that has the best employment record & situation for women, but is suffering because so many are working part time and/or working from home. It's made the firm less competitive and undesirable for a merger.
But what about its effect on recruiting and retention? For most law firms those are both huge issues -- and in many cases much more important than the two factors you mentioned.
While this is a great solution is many sectors it won't solve anything in others. As a man I love having flexibility in my job. One of the best perks. But you can't do that for a lot of jobs, a lot of high skill jobs too. So while I think we should do this, will it really solve much?
Yeah, as you say, I think it will vary tremendously job by job. But in the coding world, which has issues with gender and age inequalities, I think it might be a big help to a lot of people.
It probably should be coupled with replacing orally driven meetings and calls with written memos and written tools like Slack, Trello, etc. whenever possible.
I totally agree. I think any sector that you CAN do this you should. If not for the equality then for the increase in productivity. At least from anecdotal evidence I see people more productive when they can do things like sleep in or take time off just because they feel like it that day. Making up the hours later.
And to the second part, that is just trying to increase efficiency. But with technology, there is little reason meetings need to be in person. At least the majority of them, because there are some types of meetings that do greatly benefit from being in person.
Well, any sort of job that isn´t strictly associated with pure officework.
Something like doctor, nurse, any sort of trade, outside sales, any sort of in-person service, police, fireman, trucking/delivery. Most of these professions employ more people than IT, I believe.
Even a lot of other professions have certains times of the year/situation where you have to be there. For instance, if you're an accountant, during end of year inventories, you have to be around to take a physical inventory. If you're a lawyer or judge, you have to show up to court.
Not only do you need to show up, but you need to show up at certain times. It would be a mess if doctors or judges just came in when they felt like it. Though a counter point I can see lawyers having flexible schedules, except for court appearances. I think most jobs will require some time being in the location, it is just about if you can change what those hours are.
But just from the list you mentioned and the ones I was thinking of, are the jobs that cannot be flexible more male dominated?
Well, the previous comment I was replying to had a caveat that was this applies to jobs that "weren't customer facing".
If you take that away, most of the jobs that need you to be at a certain place and certain time require a certain amount of physical labor.
At the risk of igniting a gender war (which I have accused of on this board), men on average are stronger than women are. If you're talking about jobs with a large physical component, men generally gravitate to/are more effective at those jobs.
You absolutely can do it for doctors. This is what multi-doctor practices are for. Most people don't see regular GPs anymore; they go to multi-doctor practices that hire a half dozen doctors, and when they walk in, they see whatever doctor is on duty at the moment. Same with nurses: let's face it... do you even remember if you've seen the same nurse twice at the doctor's office?
And retail is more flexible than you might think. My mom works retail. If she needs to be out on a certain day, she'll just swap with a co-worker. Her company even has a website where you can offer up your shifts to your coworkers and pick up shifts offered up by your coworkers.
You also mentioned delivery: that's currently being subsumed by the gig economy. UberEats, Amazon Prime Now, and Postmates all use a business model where requests are dispatched to whatever drivers happen to be online and available for orders at the time.
It's amazing how flexible things can get when you hire a huge pool of warm bodies, and if some of them don't show up, you just have the others do double duty.
> You absolutely can do it for doctors.
> If she needs to be out on a certain day, she'll just swap with a co-worker.
> It's amazing how flexible things can get when you hire a huge pool of warm bodies
I think you're selectively missing certain nuances in the article. The article says that the company written about creates both flexibility in hours and flexibility in location.
If you're a health care professional or in retail, you absolutely have to be at the location. Also, if you're performing a procedure, you need to schedule a team and equipment to be available, which also implies a time and place for your schedule.
Also, the article mentions unpredictable schedules, such as staying up late with a baby or elder health care. For doctors and retail, sure you can swap shifts, etc etc. But when you take a shift, you're obligated to show up a week in advance. Last minute objections don't cut it.
And re: hiring a huge pool of warm bodies, that implies that your job is fungible and that most jobs are like gig jobs, where you can get paid for the time you're working.
I don't understand what you're saying - when you say "hire", are you implying a salary or an hourly rate and if some of them don't show up, do the remaining workers get paid more? That doesn't work for any sort of low margin business. If you're a restaurant, you can't just hire six dishwashers and hope four of them wander in during Friday rush.
No. If I hire a banker to negotiate the sale of my company I want that specific banker to be available 24/7 to deal with any issues that might come up. Just any banker is not acceptable.
There are many jobs in which people are not interchangeable parts that can easily be substituted for each other. Not coincidentally, these jobs tend to be the highest paying.
Probably not. There are a few places which already approach this socialist ideal - hedge funds, some management consulting firms and some law firms.
In this firms, employees control the means of production because employees are the means of production. Such firms tend to be mostly owned by employees themselves.
These firms are not known for being family friendly or having a work life balance. The reason is that these firms are populated by high productivity, high effort individuals. Such people rarely want to work with people less dedicated than themselves, people they rightly think of as underperformers. (I've worked with such people in the past and it's dreadful.)
In your proposed world, high productivity employees would likely self segregate into high productivity firms which would not be particularly family friendly. Lower productivity employees who want to take years off from the workforce and put family first would shift into lower productivity firms.
This means the same inequality would exist. Women would work at the family friendly firms, their husbands would work at the high productivity firms, and the inequality would continue.
(In fact, even in the modern world, inequality of this sort has been the primary driver of inequality growth. https://www.nber.org/papers/w21199 )
Thank you for the insight. I was being semi facetious with my comment; owning the MoP isn't the only required change for a Socialist society; I had similar thoughts to yours with regard to segregation of the more and less productive.
Though I am not sure how this problem can be addressed. I suspect that the fact that humans wouldn't have to work so much would alleviate part of the problem.
Actually, this isn't true in the slightest.
The VAST majority of management consulting firms, law firms, and yes, even investment firms like hedge funds are very small and closely held. Most do not get to global size with hundreds of employees ala Renassaisance or BCG or MoFo.
They are maybe 6 people, 10 people and as a result, most people in them do find that they can, in fact, structure their own hours to be family friendly.
This does not mean they are not competitive in their niche. It just means they are small and prefer to be that way, in part because the people in them prefer to have time for their lifestyles.
Co-ops would be a great idea, if it weren't for the fact that they have to balance automation with caring for the workers, which is highly inefficient for making profit, which is necessary to survive in a capitalist ecosystem.
Paying wages (and fair ones at that) along with trying to match the efficiency of those who (i) use extensive automation, at the expense of worker employment and (ii) purchase extremely cheap labour time (sweatshops, places where labour laws aren't as strict etc.) is almost untenable.
It can be done, but it's extremely hard to get done successfully, and it does not solve the societal problem of worker exploitation and reckless abandon for the environment.
It should be recognised that meeting the needs of consumers and meeting high standards for the workers is a difficult thing to get right. Meeting the needs of consumers when it comes at the expense of worker rights I would argue is a bad thing outright.
The consumer is not always right, especially when the consumer is so influenced by advertising and the culture of consumption. I would much rather not meet the need of a single customer if it meant I could have freedom from being forced to sell my labour.
The main policy that produces high-trust society is to build a monoethnic society comprised of Nordic people. Everyone opposes that besides a few people on the alt-right.
The Nordic countries have been moving away from Nordic socialism for 20 years because it doesn't actually work very well, even with a society comprised of Nordic people.
>The Nordic countries have been moving away from Nordic socialism for 20 years because it doesn't actually work very well, even with a society comprised of Nordic people.
Indeed. I suspect the main downfall of mono-ethnic social states is the development of hyper-vigilance against individual defection. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
One wonders if the same effect eventually develops in all societies that are composed of outbred ethnic groups.
The short story: there's an association between declines in social trust and people of different ethnicities living in the same society. It's not clear which way the arrow of causality points, but there is some reason to think that a highly multi-ethnic society leads to decay of social trust (ie defection)
Not at all, I was merely curious as to what you meant. With regard to this problem, I had heard of it before, and I hope there is some kind of solution. I haven't read the paper yet, but I have a feeling it takes root in petty tribalism and legitimate differences in culture. Thanks.
>I too would like it if others would meet my needs and I could disregard the needs of all other human beings.
These are not "needs" that are failing to be delivered; the only need a worker serves is the boss' "need" to make profit within capitalism. I care wholly for the needs of humans, not for the needs of the person I'm selling my labour to.
I value your needs, I value what you want. But I do not value the fact that your need must only be satisfied by my being forced to sell my time for your need.
I do not want to be forced. I don't want anyone to be forced. Either way, I would argue that the freedom of the whole world, of all the workers, is more important than desires for new cars, computers, jewellery etc.
When we are producing so many products and yet people cannot afford to live with clean water, clothes or not having to worry about starving, lack of health insurance etc. then I think we have a problem.
Capitalism does not function for the purpose of the needs of humans. Not by a long shot, so please do not frame it that way. It is merely a side effect. And I'm not asking you to value my needs, I'm asking you to value the needs of your fellows and, if you are a working person, yourself.
Again, I do not want to satisfy needs under threat of destitution, poverty and death.
These are not "needs" that are failing to be delivered; the only need a worker serves is the boss' "need" to make profit within capitalism. I care wholly for the needs of humans, not for the needs of the person I'm selling my labour to.
The boss is a human who makes his money by meeting the needs of other humans. You help him to do it.
I do not want to be forced. I don't want anyone to be forced.
So if I choose not to provide for your needs, no action will be taken against me? Somehow I doubt that the absence of force is what you had in mind.
>The boss is a human who makes his money by meeting the needs of other humans.
No, he makes his money by exploiting the labour of workers. Furthermore, this exploutation is not necessary for the boss to have a high standard of living, never mind bare survival.
>So if I choose not to provide for your needs, no action will be taken against me?
>how much money does this capitalist make if consumers do not find his products valuable and don't purchase them?
None, but I have little sympathy or wish for the success of those who exploit others, especially if that profit derives from the exploitation itself. A society without exploitation is possible and even in this society one need not exploit.
>I'm glad you favor a zero taxation society where all social programs are funded entirely by charitable contributions by uncoerced individuals.
I have a feeling you are being facetious here, but you are essentially correct. But we must also take into account the unjustness of private property too, and that it is indeed coercive to give someone or class only a choice between forcing to sell their labour or to rely upon the charity of others or death.
> and that it is indeed coercive to give someone or class only a choice between forcing to sell their labour or to rely upon the charity of others or death.
That is nature. Consume or die. Since one can only consume what is produced (or windfallen), one must produce (or scavenge windfalls) or die. In a society one can escape this iron law of nature through charity or trade.
None of this descends from private property. These are laws of nature.
>You could live off the dole, or go be a hobo in the woods somewhere.
These things only come about due to people realising that capitalism without some kind of governmental safety net is utterly barbaric. It is also impractical, from a philanthropic position, even if I do not sell my labour, others must do it, which I believe is still an injustice.
I do not think it is just that someone must choose between selling their labour and living in destitution and poverty, nor do I think it is just that workers are not rewarded fully for their work.
It is entirely forceful for any semblance of a life free from worry about if one can make it to the next month from the money his government gives him. This holds doubly for those working where exploitation is much more visible, such as sweatshops.
Furthermore in order to support those who do not work, one must pay taxes, which cannot well co-exist with the rights of freedom, equality and dubiously property. Read Proudhon's "What is Property?" for something interesting.
>The world is gonna be a lot better off if that someone is compensated for doing so.
I agree, so why must we be under a system which unfairly compensates those who do no work at all, while those who do the work are routinely exploited? The world is gonna be a lot better off without sweatshop labour and disregard for the environment insofar as profits are made.
In my ideal anarchistic society it is fine to do that. After all, it would be unjust to force you either way to do a particular thing with your product (labour time). But nobody would choose to do that, as they would know that their labour is being exploited.
All wage labour is like this, provided that you are selling it to someone with the express intent for profit. In a society that has prisons and punishment, though, those who exploit labour would be treated the same as those who steal or force people into unconscionable contracts.
The profit motive as shown through history has almost always caused massive environmental damage. Labour standards merely give the illusion of a world without exploitation. In reality your prpgrammer in SV is exploited the same way, but to a lesser degree, than the sweatshoo workers.
"I wonder if we could close it even further if we let the employees control the means of production."
Employees do control the means of production. They make all the decisions and do all the work.
You probably meant to say own the means of production.
Tried that. See: every Communist regime, all of which failed :)
Anybody is free to create a startup with 100% employee ownership - you can do it today. All the power to you, it'd be cool if that worked, I just don't think it will.
>Tried that. See: every Communist regime, all of which failed :)
This is an uncharitsble and pessimistic view of the development of socialist theory since the failure of such regimes. Arguably capitalism has a more rich history of failure.
>All the power to you, it'd be cool if that worked, I just don't think it will.
Precisely; you can see that it is almost impossible to avoid exploitation of yourself or others worjers within capitalism.
All struggle is class struggle. Intersectional feminism (egalitarianism?) is supposed to address this, but somehow it tends to miss the mark -- at least in the parts of society that I've been exposed to.
Cool. The end of the article reminds me of a somewhat recent cheating scandal that the US Navy had at one of its huge schools. The Navy adjusts its tests to be harder if pass rates get too high, which was the case at a base where instructors were passing answer keys to one another (ongoing certification tests, it seems.) The cheating led to higher pass rates and harder tests until eventually it was impossible to pass the test by just studying.
Similarly, the only way to have a life at these jobs is by cheating on the appearance of hours worked. I would say nearly the majority of my colleagues now are big savers who plan to get their money and then leave to have families for about this same reason.
This thinly veiled advert for Werk doesn't explain how someone working remotely while caring for children will still be outperformed by someone without children working remotely. How is this meant to close "the gender gap"?
> @Audi You pay your female employees less than males? You know that's against the law, right?
> @TueborFrog When we account for all the various factors that go into pay, women at Audi are on par with their male counterparts.
I think that says it all.
Instead of worrying about wages, how about letting people do what they want and maybe fix the broken work culture that favours people who pretend to work hard?
On the contrary, industries that can be converted to a shift work model are also suited to this. Vox did a similar analysis to the NYT last year [0], and one thing they pointed out was that the wage gap among pharmacists nearly went away when pharmacies changed from being independent one-man shops to being part of large chains such as Walmart and CVS that hire pharmacists to work staggered shifts.
The Walmartization of professions results in higher wages for women.
I think the employer that is able to accommodate a variety of different schedules, and indirectly, challenges that their employees face in their lives, will be a sought-after place to work.
If an employer is trying to attract the best employees, this could be a major competitive advantage. Google can offer superior compensation, but they likely will not be able to offer this due to institutional inertia, people who believe in and are invested in the current system.
No employer, especially a startup, has to follow conventional wisdom on how to run a workplace. They could decide to upend things next week if they wanted to.
In my situation, I struggled for years with attendance because my spouse had a seemingly impossible time getting up on a consistent basis to take care of the kids so i can go to work... lots of fights ensued, a even lost a couple of jobs to it (though the employers were mostly kind, and my managers appreciated the situation, but the strict rules of the company basically meant i had to leave)
Turns out, my wife has an actual sleeping disorder (DSPD[1]), and my new position, when I came to my managers about it, they worked with me. I work from home now every morning until about noon when I head into the office. If there is a meeting that I need to be in physically in the morning, than I still go in (waking up "early" once in a while is fine, the problem in the past was basically waking up early every day for years) ... it works out for everyone, I end up putting more work in (instead of sitting around for 3 hours before work when i woke up at 6am, now i am working at 6:30 ... then i go in at 12, and work till 5). I'm gladly putting in that extra time, too... as a sort of appreciation for what they are helping me with. It also drives loyalty, and I'm very loyal to both the company AND my managers for working with me. There is literally no downside to the arrangement from anyone's point of view... and it all comes from just being flexible.
WHEN someone works isn't a fundamental issue. IF we're talking retail, thats an obvious exception. If we're talking a job where the employee isnt directly contacting customers, then the time they work is largely less important. The most efficient team I've worked on in my career was made up from people around the world, there were 9 of us, everyone single one was in a different timezone, some 12 hours off from each other... and we got more done as a team than any Team I've been on before or sense... and it was largely due to the nature of our hours... we had to make sure we buttoned our shit up, we documented it well, we communicated VERY efficiently and effectively... etc.
I know it doesn't work for every position at every company, no single thing does, but to consider 9-5 (or any set schedule in particular) "fundamental" to business is short-sided at best...
I'm all for flexible work arrangements for people, no matter what their gender. But I have to say I disagree with you. Many roles are not necessarily customer facing but require a lot of interaction with a team. In the startup world the pace at which you have to operate is relentless, and in many roles it's critical that numerous people work together on a variety of projects. Yes, you can dial someone in. You can try to schedule meetings around their particular schedule. But ultimately it is SO much easier to get things done if you're all in the same place (the office) for relatively similar core hours day-in and day-out. Ideas arise out of conversations. People end up becoming privvy to information and conversations that are perhaps only tangentially related to their role. Or they end up joining new projects rather informally and organically. Which is exactly what often leads to (and prepares you for) more senior roles.
There are trade-offs that have to be made to work remotely or to have less face-to-face interaction with your teammates than others. In many cases these negatively impact your ability to move up, to succeed or to function well with a team. This is of course not true for every role or company, but it's true for many.
No, many jobs aren't customer facing yet require you to be in a certain place at a certain time, such as most trades (carpentry and welding), long haul trucking, repairman, and deliveryman.
The only job I can think of that won't get mostly automated away are either jobs that require either/both lots of creative talent (such as a highly skilled engineer, artist, etc) or require an actual onsite presence (contractor, building inspector, pest control.)
"No, many jobs aren't customer facing yet require you to be in a certain place at a certain time, such as most trades (carpentry and welding), long haul trucking, repairman, and deliveryman."
What about those, if you're not interacting with the customer, requires a certain time? A repairman can work any time if hes not dealing with the customer - as long as the job is done on time. The same for all of these.
Most of the things you listed are customer facing... which is why they have timeframes, so you can interact with the customer (or have access, etc).
> What about those, if you're not interacting with the customer, requires a certain time
Well, two things. First, the article mentions having to be in a certain place at a certain time. You're just addressing the time component. Most jobs still need you to actually be there, such as trades and long haul trucking. (long haul trucking is the most common job in the united states http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-t...)
> Most of the things you listed are customer facing
I don't know what your definition of customer facing is. Long haul trucking certainly isn't, and if you're a welder, you don't actually have to see the customer. In fact, you usually talk to your account manager who dispatches you out to customer sites.
> as long as the job is done on time
No man is an island. Most of the time, you're part of a long chain of dependencies to get things done.
If you're part of a team, you have to show up when they show up. You also have hard deadlines in order to unblock the people downstream for you. If the framing isn't done on schedule for a house, the electrical can't go in, and if the electrical isn't in, the drywall can't go in. You can't just "make up time" on the weekends.
Which is covered by the whole "customer facing" thing I said... and even caveated against. My point still stands though, its not "fundamental" to work in general.
As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woman I can get.
For a woman, extra career success will not boost her attractiveness in the same way it will for me.
This is a huge incentive. If women don't have the same incentives to work hard as men, how can they achieve the same level of success?
You're not a father clearly, you clearly don't understand how a 2 working parents relationship work. I'd urge you to listen instead of trying to internalize the issue, and discounting the reporting on it.
In the real world daycare works on banker hours. Usually you have to get there when other people are starting work, and you have to get there usually when people are leaving work. If you're late, you'll be charged a not insignificant amount of money PER MINUTE. This matters a lot when you realize how much day care is (it costs literally more than my mortgage...).
Think of the impact on having on average an hour less "working hours" than your coworkers per day.... By the way, you're not going to be able to just make up the time when you get home.... you have a child to take care of when you get home.
This is not an incentives problem, this is a logistics issue.
Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently). That's not what we want here, and worse, it's actively destructive of what we do want—thoughtful discussions and intellectual curiosity. So please don't use HN like this.
The idea that the gender pay gap could be caused by different incentive structures motivating men and women seems rather new, which is the rule for discussing flame-war causing topics.
Nevertheless, I will try to be more thoughtful with my comments.
> As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woman I can get.
be careful with this line of thinking.
if all you're looking to do is attract a mate with all that money, you're better off investing that time into acting lessons, music lessons, and athletic training.
or you might find out the hard way that being a charismatic, guitar-playing tri-athlete is going to land you a higher quality and more loyal mate than $10 million in the bank ever will.
I've spent much of my life examining this, and I happen to believe this is the world we live in. Are you suggesting that women are not in any way attracted to success?
While I find such a view fairly gross, this is not very charitable. What is particularly insane about it? Troublesome, even wrong, doesn't make something insane. I've seen such a view stated many times. I hope we can do better than moralize, it just drives people with views like this further to the fringe.
