There is a rational basis to deny fertile, young women employment

I. IntroductionA chauvinist. An antiquated, misogynistic parasite, living in the grim shadows of a bygone age of patriarchy. Or at least I imagine that is what some readers' think of me upon reading the title of this debate. I embody, as it would seem, everything that threatens the bold ideals of the egalitarian agenda. But please take care to note that my claim is a modest one. I am not affirming that women are inherently of lesser value or worth than their male counterparts, or even that they are not essentially equal in all the lofty metaphysical ways that equal could in any reasonable sense apply. No, instead I am saying that there exists a rational basis for denying fertile, young women employment. But what possible argument could there be for making employment decisions based on an attribute (or conflation of attributes) that one has no control over (barring rash measures of self-sterilization)?It came upon me as thoughts are oft to do, with a sudden and poignant insight. I was reading about how courts have decided it perfectly within the realm of legality for employers to bar intelligent persons from becoming cops. Robert Jordan, 49-year old college graduate scored too high on his IQ test, landing somewhere in the range of a 125 IQ (an IQ average I imagine for this site). When Jordan sued for discrimination, insofar as one's basic intelligence has been shown to be largely genetic[1], The US District Court found that the station had "shown a rational basis for the policy.[2]" The rational basis was one that sought to prevent job turnover, because "those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training."This is not some isolated incident, of course, as the Iowa Supreme Court upheld its own ruling in a case where a woman was fired because she was too attractive. The court claimed "that bosses can fire employees they see as threats to their marriages, even if the subordinates have not engaged in flirtatious or other inappropriate behavior.[3]"With this ground set, I intend to use the same reasoning that has been officially claimed as rational to show why employers also have a rational basis for denying young, fertile women employment.II. To Prevent Job TurnoverI am certain there are no surprises here with this argument. I maintain that preventing job turnover is a rational priority for employers and any measure that would effectively prevent unneeded turnover is itself a rational measure. Females between the ages of 18-34 participate in the highest rates of pregnancy, 154.12 average pregnancies per 1000 women a year. According to recent trends, 19% of women are childless at menopause (sometime between ages 40-44)[4]. That means that 81% of women have children sometime between the ages of 1 and 39. To break it down, 6.7% have children sometime after age 34 and before the age of 40, and 5.3% of women have children before age 18, leaving a 69% chance that a woman will have a child sometime between the ages of 18-34. This is a daunting statistic. And if you can"t see why, then we know you certainly are not too smart for the New London police force. Trends indicate that the percentage of women who stay in the workforce during the weeks preceding birth steadily decline, where less than half are still working after week 30. This says nothing of the temporary disability that an employer will have to consider. Furthermore, postpartum statistics show that after childbirth, by week 20 still 50% of new mothers have not returned to the workforce and past the 100th week 20% have yet to return. These stats indicate that an employer would be taking on a significant risk by hiring a young, fertile woman, insofar as she has 69% chance of becoming pregnant and therefore temporarily disabled. Moreover, a very significant amount of those 69% will be out for upwards of 70 weeks, and roughly 20% will be out beyond 100 weeks or more.[5] So employers (especially those offering costly training) are acting rationally when they avoid the risks associated with hiring a young, fertile woman.III. Employing Young, Fertile Women Has a Negative Effect on ConsumptionWhile many employers are concerned about the costs associated with job turnover, perhaps even more are concerned about the decreasing demand for their products and services. But how in the world could young, fertile women have a hand in the reduced consumption of goods, both material and otherwise? Astute employers may at their leisure recognize that female independence and opportunity cost reduce both marriage and birth rates (in the 1960's, a little over 31% of women worked, where now women rival men in the 70% range[6]). Concurrently with historical wage reductions, men are working longer hours with more romantic opportunities, leading to an ever-increasing number of divorces[7]. With the combined impacts of the latter mentioned and the resulting decline in birthrates, we observe the inventible decrease in consumers and wacked out labor demand. These connections are logically sound, empirically indisputable and readily available to anyone willing to observe the data. Consider the following:Women in the workforce 1960: 37.7%Women in the workforce 2000: 60.2%Compare this to:Births per 1000 (1960): 118Births per 1000 (2000): 66.3As is evident by the stats themselves, the percentage increase in women in the workforce (61.8%) strongly correlates with the decrease in births (56.2%). This means that with the increase of young women in the workforce, there are now fewer consumers being produced to demand the goods of employers.Furthermore, the invasion of young, fertile women in the workforce has had an observable effect on the continuing debt crises in the US. This observation gives governmentally funded jobs an especially rational incentive to bar female employment. Where systems like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were initially designed based on traditional family models--where birthrates were higher than replacement levels--they are now folding under the pressure of low birthrates. Simply speaking, there are not enough taxpayers replacing those who now survive on the aforesaid government infrastructures.IV. ConclusionI recognize that there are many more rational arguments that could be made in the favor of denying young, fertile women employment (e.g. divorce statistics, workplace stress and a higher rate of lawsuits). I also recognize that space will not afford my exhausting them all. However, I believe that the two offered arguments both rest upon rational bases and are themselves rational. I deny any presupposition of some sort of transcendent and trumping egalitarian ideal and will press my opponent to produce evidence for the metaphysical existence of any such assumption (if he decides to take that route).PS. As a perhaps less tangential note than even I may suspect, it is at least interesting to note that 75% of new mothers would prefer not to go back to work.[8]Sources:[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[2] http://abcnews.go.com...[3] http://talkingpointsmemo.com...[4] http://en.wikipedia.org...[5] http://www.bls.gov...[6] http://cr4re.com...[7] http://www.cdc.gov...[8] http://www.dailymail.co.uk...