Tangential: I heard a wild, but interesting argument the other day about how allowing different maternity leave between men and women, ceteris paribus, would lead to gender discrimination when hiring. The reasoning was: regardless of the reason being "fair", companies would see women as having a higher chance of taking more leave than men, and thus have less value, overall.

It was an interesting argument for prohibiting differences between paternity and maternity leave, i.o.w.: you must give new fathers as much time off as you give new mothers, no more, no less.

It sounded nice so I never researched whether it was experimentally confirmed / disproven :)