Economist's take on maternity leave.

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 3 months (finance.yahoo.com)

This is an economist's take on maternity leave. I know it's a little light by most of our standards, but with the posted articles about Dr. Aarssen's work on motherhood and demographics, it seems a little more relevant than usual.

I can't say I like his writing style. This guy complains that issues regarding mothers, children and gender get clouded with emotion and then he plays an emotional tactic with his "Bob."

The guy identifies different parts of the problem reasonably well, but I thought he was going to propose the solution that the employees should sign a contract promising to work for a few extra months or that maternity leave money would be paid as an interest-free loan that would slowly be forgiven. Working couples can't pay their rent and hospital bills with, "We'll pay you extra later."

The New York Times' Ethicist columnist dealt with an issue like this once, but in that case, the woman knew that she wasn't coming back to work after her paid multi-week leave; she didn't simply change her mind about working after her baby was born. The Ethicist advised her to tell her boss about her plans. The boss decided to give her two weeks of fully paid leave instead of the six or twelve that she would have gotten.

What do you guys think?

Keywords: economics gender children health pay parenting motherhood children human reproduction politics science and culture science and economics