gender

The Economic Case for Paternity Leave

More maternity leave might sound like a great idea, but as long as mothers are the only parents taking leave, longer stints at home actually worsen job discrimination against them and makes them less likely to pursue a career.

Rather, as the experiences of Sweden, Iceland, and a handful of other countries show, the secret to keeping mothers in the workforce lies not in giving them more time off, but in getting more fathers to stay at home instead

.. Accounting for seven-tenths of global consumer spending, women are “the ultimate agents of aggregate demand,” says Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund. Companies that design and market their goods and services in ways that appeal to women will sell more effectively than those that don’t. Companies led by talented women are more likely to pull that off.

.. Paradoxically, upping female employment levels appears to stave off this peril. Women in countries with higher female employment rates give birth to more children, on average, according to Goldman Sachs.

.. It’s telling that the better educated a woman is, the more likely she is to stay out of the workforce.

.. “Society is a mirror of the family,” Westerberg told the Times. “The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home. Getting fathers to share the parental leave is an essential part of that.”

The Underground Girls of Kabul

Some families in Afghanistan raise their girls as boys, up until puberty, when these girls have to get married and have a family.

The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus

In her research, Ms. Correll found that employers rate fathers as the most desirable employees, followed by childless women, childless men and finally mothers. They also hold mothers to harsher performance standards and are less lenient when they are late.

There was one exception in Ms. Budig’s study: Women in the top 10 percent of earners lost no income when they had children, and those in the top 5 percent received bonuses, similar to men. She speculated that in theserarefied jobs, employers see high-performing women as more similar to men, and that women might work more and negotiate for higher pay in order to afford household and child care help.

.. For instance, in countries that promote more traditional gender roles, like Germany, where new mothers are expected to take more than a year off work, the motherhood penalty is very high. Countries like Sweden with more progressive policies, such as incentives for new fathers to also take leave, have a smaller pay gap.

Jennifer Lawrence: Allowed to be a Body-Positive Role Model

Here are some quotes Jennifer Lawrence has made over the years regarding her weight:

“I’d rather look chubby on screen and like a person in real life.” — Mirror

“In Hollywood, I’m obese. I’m considered a fat actress, I’m Val Kilmer in that one picture on the beach.”– HuffPost

“I eat like a caveman. I’ll be the only actress that doesn’t have anorexia rumors.” —Entertainment Weekly

Because Melissa McCarthy actually is a fat woman, she isn’t allowed to make brash statements about body acceptance.

The reason Jennifer Lawrence is allowed to be a body-positive role model to young girls and “chubby” women is because she is representative of conventional beauty.