> offering parental leave is an excellent example of the kind of thing a union would negotiate, and is also pretty well related to how attractive a company is to women (who are more likely to have childcare responsibilities).

This is an excellent example of how women make different choices to men driven by the special rights that they are afforded. Giving a women more maternity leave sounds laudable but it creates a perverse incentive where they have to take on those childcare duties.

My wife and I are going through this at the moment and she will be entitled to 5 months of full-paid maternity leave. No employment contract I've ever signed has even come close to that for paternity leave. The only rational decision is for her to take care of the child.

I'm much more in favour of some sort of system where that leave is allocated to a family and how they choose to divide it is up to them.