Single people of the world, Unite!

Family oriented policies in law firms are becoming a greater and greater trend. Some firms offer in-house daycare services, most all provide maternity leave (as required by law), some provide paternity leave, and many are beginning to provide parenting tracks (wherein an individual can work a reduced schedule to have time to parent while simply prolonging the time until they make partner). These policies were the topic of our discussion in my Jurisprudence class this morning, and apparently, I’m largely alone in my stance on such policies.

I find the policies to be largely repugnant and a wholesale discrimination against people who do not have, or choose not to have, families. For every person who takes off time for work in order to parent their children, other employees must work harder to pick up the slack of their missing comrade. These other employees do not get any benefit for working harder, while their missing colleague gets to be both a parent and get credit as if they were still working. If the remaining employees do not pick up the slack of the missing parent, then they see their own salaries fall due to the worsened situation of the firm. How is that fair?

In a situation where the firm provides in-house daycare services, or such, the analysis is far more direct. Most offices follow a ‘total compensation package’ approach, in which individuals will be paid less if the company provides more benefits (the theory being that it all evens out). In other words, if the company now provides dental insurance where before it did not, employees should expect a small reduction in pay to make up for that new added benefit.

However, for individuals without kids, the benefit is one that they will not use, and yet they end up subsidizing the child-care of other colleagues in return for no benefit. If you want to have a family, do it on your own time. Making the company accommodate your outside of work activities by giving you work-time benefits and advantages not only is harmful to the company but unjust and unfair to those who must pay the price for your leisure and entertainment activities.

It’s not right, and it needs to stop.