I failed to link this image before:
What you see here is that each 3-week extension of paid parental leave is associated with a widening of the total gender pay gap of about 1%
Yeah, mandatory leave for both parents seems like the only thing that would avoid paid leave having the apparent effect it did in Europe.
But it also comes with a lot of possible issues. Forcing both parents to take leave prevents parents being strategic with who takes leave based on relative income. That could make a baby much more risky for a high-earning executive mother, the very same people we want to promote in this thread. It would also mean both parents careers have a hiccup, not just one, which would hurt household incomes for people with kids.
So, since it's completely unacceptable to
force someone to take a break, we could "cap" the leave and say it's split between both parents, but is optional. But in that case, you might find couples where the mother did her 3 months paid leave, but dad is earning too much money for them to take his 3 months leave, so rather than derail dad's career the mother just quits her job. They, and women in general, would be in a worse position than if we'd only been more flexible and said mom could take 6 months paid leave.