> The result is decreased productivity, which hurts the economy.
The economy is an abstraction which we care about only to the extent that it tracks people's aggregate happiness. So if you're going to consider the harm to "productivity" on one side of the ledger, you ought to also consider on the other side of the ledger the harm to people's happiness caused by a world in which parenthood and sustained livelihood come into conflict. (And you ought to consider this not just to whatever extent happy employees are more productive employees, but rather because happiness is the fundamental goal to which productivity is a means, not vice versa)
The economy is an abstraction which we care about only to the extent that it tracks people's aggregate happiness. So if you're going to consider the harm to "productivity" on one side of the ledger, you ought to also consider on the other side of the ledger the harm to people's happiness caused by a world in which parenthood and sustained livelihood come into conflict. (And you ought to consider this not just to whatever extent happy employees are more productive employees, but rather because happiness is the fundamental goal to which productivity is a means, not vice versa)