In the US it's nowhere close.
"The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) requires 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually for mothers of newborn or newly adopted children... "California is the first state to offer paid paternity leave weeks (six weeks, partial payment). In the rest of the US, paternity pay weeks are not offered (therefore neither paternity paid leave weeks)." [1]
Of course companies can offer what they want above the requirements, but even when it's offered it's very common for the paternity leave to lag far behind maternity leave. For instance, even for a company like Apple, which is generally pretty progressive,
"U.S. employees will now have a few more weeks of paid parental leave: Young Smith says expectant mothers can take up to four weeks before a delivery and upwards of 14 weeks after and expectant fathers (and other non-birth parents) can take six-week parental leaves." [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_...
>In the US it's nowhere close.
I think that wikipedia page has misleading or outdated information in the summary. FMLA leave covers both mothers and fathers equally.
From the Department of Labor: "Both mother and father are entitled to FMLA leave for the birth of their child, or placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care."
Bringing up California further confuses the issues, since that is about paid leave whereas FMLA is unpaid. I think the 6 weeks of paid leave in CA comes from the employer-paid disability insurance.
FWIW I did some web searching for the policies at big tech companies (which of course offer more than the minimums. The following article is a bit dated (2015) but seems to give a nice summary of maternity- and paternity-leave policies.
http://time.com/money/4098469/paid-parental-leave-google-ama...
The TLDR: some (e.g., Facebook, Netflix) have parity between mothers and fathers but most of them (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google, MS, Twitter) give at least some extra weeks for moms and/or birth moms.
The Clinton-era FMLA grants 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. 25 states expand on that, and 25 do not.
> Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career.
Some will take it. If utilization rates are not equal, that's not a reason to withhold the opportunity.
> I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work
The FMLA only provides for unpaid leave. However, businesses continue to pay for health insurance during the leave period.
I never said it was. However, if it's unpaid leave, it's pretty obvious why many would refuse to take it, or not take as much as is available: they can't afford the lack of pay. How are parents supposed to pay their bills if they're both taking a 12-week unpaid vacation? Health insurance doesn't pay your rent. So it seems pretty obvious that for many couples, the woman (who generally earns less, and also usually breastfeeds) will take all/more leave and stay home, while the man will get back to work so their finances don't take too much of a hit.
Of course, for couples where their employers offer equal and paid parental leave, we might see different results.
Why should that be our expectation? The career penalty is a tax on mothers and a subsidy for fathers. That such inequity is normalized is why "adjusting" the gender gap does not solve it.
I'll also do an aside here and point out that generous (paid) and equal family leave ends up being a subsidy for parents and a tax on childless people, and also in a way a tax on single parents.
If you mean giving the same amount of leave to both fathers and mothers, isn't that already the norm?
Also, offering this is one thing, but getting parents to use it is quite another. Many fathers probably avoid taking so much leave precisely because it does harm their career. How would you fix that?
>decoupling health insurance from employment (to lower costs on business for parental leave)
This decoupling is a good idea for many reasons, but I don't see how it would decrease costs on businesses for parental leave. Health insurance doesn't compensate businesses for having to pay people for time that they spend away from work, it just covers their medical bills. Most of that paid time is just parents staying at home with their new kid.