It seems like a good read, but I would loved more data to crunch. The numerics of working long hours was a great example of how the mathematics of the situation make this stuff happen.
Anyhow, my wife and I actually do the fully-equal thing - she makes a bit more than me (teaching in Ontario is paid well and I'm not working in one of the Big Tech Market cities) so we have get to split things 50/50.
This actually presented a great opportunity: She wanted to go back to work early from her parental leave after the birth of our 3rd kid. So I did something new: I took the other half of the leave. 7 months off with my kids.
If you have the opportunity, do this. It actually made more money for us, in terms of strict income. Both of our employers provided a several weeks of top-up parental leave in which the government unemployment-insurance benefit is supplemented up to your full weekly paycheck. So by both of us taking time off, we got to double-dip on this.
And the experience with the kids was fantastic. I got to play boardgames with my son and teach him to ride his bike, and took my two daughters jogging in a double-stroller every other day. I practically lived in a ring-sling, even getting the stink-eye from greasy guys on a family trip to Manhattan. I got to properly get to know the parents of all my son's best friends and we're all still close. I was in the best shape of my life and had a great time, and my wife likes her job so she was happy to be at work.
I'd considered doing it on our 2nd kid, but friends and family had talked me out of it because of worries about my career. I don't even work in the same place I did when my 2nd was born. I quit that job later on anyways, so I missed out on that time for nothing.
To me, the biggest tragedy is the every-upwards climb of working hours for the household. There was a time when a family would live on a single 40 hour workweek. And what have we gained? I mean, for people who work retail, does the fact that they work on Sundays and every night to 10PM mean they actually sell more goods? Or does it just mean that retailers need to pay staff less per-hour because they're selling for more hours?