Orthodox economic thought suggests that in the labor market, whenever wages increase without anything changing in the underlying supply and demand, employment would fall… I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never been big on religion so I suggest taking that with a grain of salt.

Regardless of your conclusions and what you make of the orthodox argument, it is important to consider the total cost and aggregate risk of a company of hiring a woman vs a man or other genders. If, for example, regulation establishes that women have the right to a different amount of postnatal days off than men, that would be risks that companies would take into account at the moment of deciding who to hire.