Where I work, parents earn more than childless people... and it annoys me

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So, where I work, parents receive an allowance because they have children. I don't have any children, but I would really like them. The argument is that people with children need the money because it's expensive having kids. Which I don't disagree with for a minute, but it pisses me off, nonetheless.

I'm single. Which means I have to pay all my rent/mortgage etc on my own, which is expensive. More expensive than if I lived with a partner. But I don't qualify for extra salary. Clearly, it's my choice to live alone, and I'm not blaming being single on my colleagues but hopefully you see what I mean. I'd also like a dog, but wouldn't get extra money to pay for dog daycare/walkers etc (I am NOT comparing having children to having a dog, just explaining that my lifestyle choices don't qualify for extra payments, like they would if I had children).

I can totally see the merit in an allowance for children, but am I being unreasonable to be pissed off about it? I'm slightly jealous of them, and am also paying through the nose for private therapy to try and manage/get over being alone and feeling sad about it - I just feel that their lifestyle is being subsidised, whereas mine isn't, even though it's kinda expensive too.

I pay income tax and NI. I also have a small private pension. The NI and pension should cover the cost of my future pension if I eventually get to retire.

No, it really doesn't! Your future draw-down dwarfs by many times over the NI you have paid, which by the way isn't and has never been a hypothecated tax. It is essentially an extra payment on income tax.

As for the income tax, I don't currently get an awful lot from it.

Roads, transport, defence, libraries, culture, arts, the emergency services, police, the civil service, scientific research, the BBC, the justice system (keeping the rule of law in your society)...and so on, and so on....

You never watch the BBC then? Or travel on a road? Don't expect criminals to be caught?

I rarely need the NHS and since I don't have children, I'm contributing hugely to a state school system that I don't use.

The state school system is not very expensive in terms of the overall public budget. (Compare defence, for example.)

You might not need the NHS now, but you probably will in the future. No private insurance that you can currently buy will fund what the NHS does.

The reason we have collective taxpayer-paid systems is that the costs of funding public services by individual insurance and payments would be not only astronomically large, but simply impossible to do.

If you truly don't believe in the system, why take its benefits whilst pretending that you don't? I don't believe a single person living in today's UK doesn't depend on collective provision in some way. Even the richest of Russian oligarchs comes here precisely because the tax we pay funds a working rule of law, public order and the enforcement of property rights. If you think you don't get anything much for your taxes you must have a very limited awareness of how society works!

Wayfarersonbaby

I pay nearly £1,000 pcm into my pension. I think I will be OK on retirement. I also pay a significant amount of tax, so again I think I contribute. In fact the ones heavily dependent on the welfare state on retirement are parents who have been economically inactive for many years, especially if their marriages break down (as half of them will).

But I don't think like that. I think everyone should be supported and we should end this privatisation of responsibility for care. If the state has an interest in people having children, it should support that through financial subsidies. Unfortunately, it seems that the state thinks the opposite and you get no support for more than 2 children.

We should also have support and subsidies for the ageing population. This may be somewhat unpopular, but we should also legalise euthanasia to allow those who feel they have lived their life and no longer want to be kept alive in some awful care home to end their lives with dignity.

It's brilliant! How nice that you have this to look forward to. Be careful of cutting of nose to spite face. Too many "It's not fair" whining might just see everyone lose out.
No discrimination as not a protected characteristic.
Private employers often pay different people doing same job a different amount.
If you're well paid already why moan? Nice for working parents to feel valued.
Not one of the Catholic newspapers or a Rosary factory is it?

I am offended (a term a rarely use) that you consider childless people "freeloaders" and that we should be grateful to you and others for having children.

Oh for goodness' sake. You clearly have missed the point. I don't consider childless people freeloaders at all; I'm pointing out to you that that's the logical consequence of your OWN argument in claiming children are a "lifestyle choice".

Nice for working parents to feel valued.

and even nicer for single worker or women who cannot have children to feel under valued. No, to BE undervalued, because they are clearly worth "less". Absolute nonsense.

Wayfarersonbaby

I HAVEN'T USED THE TERM LIFESTLYE CHOICE

pointstaken

Do you often censor what people are allowed to feel?

Or do you just like to project "issues"?

I'm pointing out to you that that's the logical consequence of your OWN argument in claiming children are a "lifestyle choice"

That is not the consequence (logical or otherwise) of calling children a lifestyle choice. No one is saying it's an unreasonable choice. But unless you were forced into it despite the free contraception and family planning services, then it remains a choice and I am flummoxed as to why you can't grasp that and have seemingly taken exception to it (I think even labelling it inhumane).

I assume you know what the word 'choice' means? All this guff about being grateful that other people had children etc has nothing to do with the fact that choosing to start a family is not forced on anyone and is therefore a choice. No one that I have seen is saying society should not support parents and families.

No one has missed your point. It just isn't a very good one.

Do you often censor what people are allowed to feel?

is that the best argument you can find against someone who disagree with you?

It's not unheard of - usually for organisations who employ across several different countries and need to offer salary grades on a like for like basis

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.embl.de/jobs/pdf/Overview-of-EMBL-pay-and-benefits-for-Staff-Members.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwioj825kObSAhUDKsAKHf8aDZcQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNFBoi46hcjN7H9iwWBU1eKXwThDKA&sig2=TISg-ZUc9oyYUrX02lTmjg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.embl.de/jobs/pdf/Overview-of-EMBL-pay-and-benefits-for-Staff-Members.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwioj825kObSAhUDKsAKHf8aDZcQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNFBoi46hcjN7H9iwWBU1eKXwThDKA&sig2=TISg-ZUc9oyYUrX02lTmjg

A lot of women fall out of the workplace once they start having children because it's too expensive to stay within it. This is just one way of incentivising parents to stay, to retain talent.

My very young colleague without children would say it's discriminatory. If she has children one day she will change her mind, I would bet. But she thinks childcare vouchers and flexible working are discriminatory too. She has no idea how hard it is to stay in the workplace as a working parent!

Obviously any stage of life can bring with it its difficulties, but I can't condemn companies which give overall minor incentives to parents in order to retain talent.

OK, sonyaya, I give in: why don't we have a special category of "lifestyle choice baby" for those babies who are born to nice middle-class people in a developed economy who have easy access to perfectly-accurate contraception, whilst they get together and then make an active choice to "TTC" and "birth a child". Those ones shouldn't get any child-related benefits, then, because they chose to have children?

Then the non-lifestyle-choice babies where their parents are teenagers or were raped or pressured or were in DV relationships or not in relationships or couldn't access contraception or had no economic prospects otherwise or had a contraceptive failure or don't live in a developed country, those ones could maybe fill in a special form perhaps and get some kind of special state support? Though obviously there aren't that many of these non-choice babies, no? Only a few special cases?

Those ones shouldn't get any child-related benefits

Yeah except literally no one has said that, least of all me who specifically said I completely agree with state funded support and/or benefits for parents.

So in the context of what I have said in this thread, the premise of your post is (to quote you) "bollox".

wayfarer I understand your point was to demonstrate how saying "children are a lifestyle choice" is as stupid as saying "not having children is freeloading".
Not sure if some posters really didn't understand what you meant or are winding you up

The "extra holiday" that they can take is parental leave. You get 18 weeks per child, to be used before the child's 18th birthday. It's unpaid, and therefore not used very much. The fact that you've interpreted this as "extra holiday" makes me think you don't actually know what this "extra money" that they get is. Child benefit, perhaps? If they genuinely do get paid more, then that's wrong and you need to challenge it. But make sure you get the facts first.

If its an extra allowance given to all employees when they have kids, then i don't see it as discriminatory.

So a parent in the workforce is more highly valued than someone without children - how ridiculous! When we had DC's we knew we would have to pay their nursery fees - it was nothing to do with our employers the decisions we made to become parents.

OP - I would be raising a serious complaint at your employers about this inequality. I would have no respect for an employer creating unfair divisions between parents and non parents in the w,orkforce.

I completely sympathise with you OP.

It's the reason why I'm taking loads of special paid leave this year, and give zero fucks when people with children moan that it's unfair.

Nope, it's not unfair. You've had your own paid maternity leave, which no one gets to question, but has to cover for you while you do it, and you have a lovely baby and a complete family at the end of it.

I probably won't ever get to have that. So yes I will take all the special leave I can get, and no I won't apologize for it.

Wow! There is some serious heat going on here!!

There are loads of perks and incentives for all different lifestyles in all different types of companies, welcome corporations who need to attract talent! The indirect discrimination argument could be applied to every single other 'perk' regardless of amount, the principle is the same.

Car allowance/company car is common, what if you don't drive? You don't get it! discrimination against those who don't/ cant drive? Incentivising environmental damage? Kill it

Cycle to work schemes? Disabled/ unable to cycle - discrimination. Kill it

Free gym memberships? Disabled/ unable to utilise it - discrimination. Kill it

Private Healthcare - pays out more when you are sick, incentivising sickness because they get more out of the scheme and therefore 'paid' less? Kill it

Pension contributions - those with shorter life expectancies won't get as much out of it either. Kill that too

Hell why not just kill every single perk or benefit that any company has to offer in case one group of employees gets more from it than another, only way to be fair really.

Or we could all accept that different companies support their employees in different ways and as long as it isn't explicit discrimination just accept it is what it is or work for a company that suits your particular situation.

I doubt very much the parents get 'paid' more for the same job, their contracted salary is probably in a similar region to their counterparts. They receive help towards childcare on top as they have children; it is a benefit of choosing to work for that particular company just like I get a car allowance as a benefit but my non driving colleagues don't. Fair, probably not but it got me to sign the contract over a company who wouldn't provide it. It's a talent war I'm afraid.

I agree it should be a carers/dependants allowance though, paid directly to the institution providing the care, that way it really does go towards child care and isn't cash in hand so to speak.

None of these benefit/perk schemes are fair to everyone nor are they going anywhere any time soon, I'm afraid that is just they way our country is and the only true way to stop it is to stop all the perks which I am pretty sure would unleash Mary hell on here and in society generally.

Another way to think about it is that an employee in London is going to get paid more than the employee in the North for the same job because it's recognized that it costs more to live in London. This is the same thing except with parents because the reality is that once you have a child and go back to work, childcare that gives you coverage over working hours is going to be expensive. Going off DHs Danish workplace, average hours are 40 hours a week hence adding commute time means you need to pay for 50 hours of childcare.

For all these people without children who think everyone should be paid the same, I challenge you to put £500 away for one week next month and come back to tell me how you get on. We have a crazy number of families living in poverty and this employer is doing something about it. I think credit should be given to the employer.

My husband's employer does this - £450/month. Global company.

We don't have kids, and I have always simply thought of it as a nice gesture to help with the expense of raising children in London. On a net basis we see far more of our salaries than his (very few) colleagues with children!

Mayen I tell childless colleagues how much I have left over after paying for childcare that enables me to go to work to generate taxes and profits for my employer they are shocked. Tax credits, child benefit and childcare vouchers are a drop in the ocean.

Same at my employer too so maybe it is more common?

I would say though that my kids cost way more each month than the allowance! I think the original idea was to help ensure equal purchasing power across the staff - regardless of your family situation.

I'd say that was indirect discrimination by marital status (on the grounds that it is a benefit skewed towards those in marriages/long term partnerships) and is illegal.

Is marital status a protected characteristic? I think not. Sexuality, religion, race, disability, gender all are but not marriage. It's not illegal.
Do you know in my workplace the office workers get season ticket loans. It's not fair, I'm home based so it discriminates against me.
The office workers get free tea and coffee.its not fait I'm home based and have to buy my own.
Just ridiculous- why can't we be pleased that others are being supported rather than mealy mouthed and jealous?