alt Hacker News> was in too many meetings, where the CV of a young woman was critically evaluated for her propensity to get pregnant as soon as the probationary period was over
When was this? In much of Europe that's been illegal employment discrimination for decades. But I suppose employers are less worried if they can be confident that it's unlikely that any of their employees will have children.
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Happens in Germany. As long as she can't prove it, she can't win a suit.
>When was this? In much of Europe that's been illegal employment discrimination for decades.
Happens all the time in Austria. If you're a woman in your mid 20s to mid 30s, and employer will assume you'll get pregnant soon and go on childcare leave, so they'll pick other candidates if they can. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Illegal things happen ALL THE TIME, and perps get away with it when there's no enforcement or the plaintiff doesn't have enough proof, time or money to fight said injustice. For example, on my street it's illegal to drive over 30kph, and yet half the cars that drive by go over 45 simply because there's no law enforcement nearby to catch them and fine them. If there's no enforcement with direct consequences at scale, then a law is virtually useless.
For an employer to get into legal trouble over pregnancy or racial or nationality discrimination with government authorities, that means the candidate would need to know upfront and have proof that they were discriminated against over those immutable characteristics, which is rarely the case as everyone just gets the same copy-paste legally safe rejection email from HR: "we regret to inform you that you didn't make the final cut because candidates with better experience/qualifications bla bla bla" and that's where it ends. You will never know what they discussed in private.
But that's not the reason women have few kids here. The reason is mostly cultural and environmental.
It’s still pretty normal for public sector positions to have this discussions behind closed doors.
Once you have the job, it’s hard to fire you. So it’s a reoccurring pattern that people apply, work for the minimum needed time to get paid parental leave and then start to implement their family plans.
That is completely within their legal rights and for society as a whole it’s a good thing to have more kids.
At the same time it’s also bad for everyone else in the same team.