The women in this article have a very different experience to women in Government jobs in my country.
Here they have 9 months fully-paid maternity leave most of which is usually taken after the baby is born.
Also when they return to work they will have accumulated a lot of annual leave.
For the first 12 years of the child's life they have the flexibility to take a lot of parental leave (which is unpaid but doesn't involve any loss of pension entitlements).
All of which is great except that nobody is usually taken on to cover for the missing employee. So the remaining staff (especially the conscientious ones) get dumped on and the taxpayer gets an inferior service.