Parental Leave Policies

Thought experiment: would it still be a (meaningful) difference if the father would get the same leave as the mother?

Parental leave (actually only for women) is 14 weeks on 80% pay. After that many women take unpaid leave to enlongate that time. After that they reduce to 20%-60% time on the job or quit their all together to raise their children for a couple of years. This reduces their pension, because they work less.

May I ask what country you live in? And does your country have laws for sufficient maternity/paternity leave?

This has already been solved in multiple countries. For instance here in Norway, the leave goes for both parents. There is something like 12 months that can be shared between the parents, and both have around a month of leave just at the birth.Even asking about pregnancy/child plans in a interview is illegal.

Include paternity leave while you're at it.

Blame first the absent maternity/ paternity leave in the US. Then we can discuss the rest of the arguments.

Maybe not, but this is reasonably similar to expecting paid paternity leave, something that is common (and mandatory) in many countries.

Some societies do.I'm writing from Canada. Mother and/or father can share up to 35 weeks of paid leave under the national insurance program. This maxes out at, I think, approx $500 per week. It's not a lot. But it helps.Regarding societal values, this the same program that would normally pay you temporarily if you were laid off (not by choice). Normally you wouldn't be eligible to collect benefits if you willingly left a job. Pregnancy is generally considered to be a ch

As far as I’m aware “paternity leave” is a benefit offered maybe by a select few employers but certainly isn’t common in the US.“The [Family and Medical Leave Act] entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave.”Depending on how the employer arranges leave, an employee can use banked le

"She's getting paid based on years of working experience and those 16 months can't count towards it of course."This is basically an arbitrary choice, you're still paying their salary so why not continue everything else? Similarly a male engineer might want to take 16 months paternity leave.Allowing 16 month long full-paid leave for new parents would be an amazing policy though. This also seems like an issue with this example as IME there are very, very few companie