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Comment by kaybe | Hacker News Reader

And it usually ends with the mother taking 12 and the dad taking 2, and these 2 being spent on a longer vacation somewhere.

There are many reasons, it seems to me that external circumstances are shaping a lot of them.

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Yeah that's a pattern you see in most places with any kind of shared pool. The father takes a small, frequently the legal minimum time, and the mother takes the rest. Ultimately it kind of makes the most sense because it is the woman that's gone through the most work of giving birth and is a natural food source for the kid but it does perpetuate the issue of women's careers being set back by having a kid.

When they have that much freedom, can you really call it "perpetuating the issue" instead of "doing what they want"? It's not an issue for the women who prefer to do it, or they wouldn't be doing it.

It's not entirely a choice it's socially usually seen as weird for the guy to take more than the minimum or some small portion above that in many of these places. And even if it is a completely free choice (when do those ever exist?) the impact to women's careers extend beyond the setback from leaving the workforce for several months because they're still expected to do more of the labor of child rearing.

edit: To expand ultimately societies and governments need women to have kids, as of now they're the only ones who can after all so I think eliminating as many downsides as possible to that is something that should be done.

It's an issue for everyone. When you can expect any younger woman to suddenly take a year off they become a larger hiring risk compared to men. Equalizing the parental leave time changes things also for those without children.

Finances.

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