But you want humans to have children, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think fathers in Norway are forced to take a maternity leave, which are equally long as mothers' leaves. That's seems like a fair solution.
While I do, I don't think most of Western public policy does. It seems like we've fundamentally outsourced children to third world countries. Raising a child in any state is going to be much costlier than raising him/her in the Philippines for example.
When the children become economically valuable adults - or prove to have enough economic potential (say by being admitted into a university), they are imported into the West. In a very cynical way, this is sort of what immigration has become. Instead of tackling the issue of why people are not reproducing, public policy seems happier to drain the most economically useful citizens from other countries.
And some fathers would LOVE a paternity leave (you would't have to force them). I just had a baby 6 weeks ago and took 4 week off (3 paid, 1 unpaid) of my own vacation time.
I understand that the baby is more dependent on the mother and childbirth is obviously more physically taxing on women, but I'd like to see more equality for men too. Women at my company can get 6 months PTO.
> But you want humans to have children, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think fathers in Norway are forced to take a maternity leave
In Norway, if you choose the 100% paid leave, it's 10 weeks for the father and 10 weeks for the mother and then 26 weeks distributed between the father and the mother however they like. But those 10 weeks of the father's paternity leave you cannot transfer to the mother.
But it's not forced: If you'd rather work than take 10 weeks of 100% paid leave, you can. The Norwegians might find it hard to understand why someone would not take the leave, but different countries have different cultures.
