It would be better in all kinds of ways, more equitable, better for the mother and child, better for the company, if the father got just as much time off as the mother.
Assuming (big assumption) that they started at exactly equal skill, and learn at the same pace...well, practice makes perfect. One will be better than the other.
Ive taken sabbaticals in the past, and it sure as hell affected by skills vs someone who didn't.
But the reality is that when raising a family almost always the female takes more time off work than the male. So, governments and companies should incentivize that both take equal time off and that it has the same effect on their respective future careers.
Totally agree that the only viable solution is for men and women to share the burden more equally and that starts with near equal leave, as you said.
Won't change the advantage that people with no kids will have, but they are giving up on "the most wonderful thing in the world" to get it, after all.
I recovered a bit since I was working on side projects during sabbatical and could talk for them in interviews, so switching companies helped a tad (though finding someone who would hire someone with a big hole on their resume wasn't easy).
There's also just stuff that you only learn on the job and can improve on indefinitely, like managing people, projects, etc that obviously was behind by the amount of time I was off work and meant I wasn't up to snuff for some opportunities.
The problem often arises because it makes more sense for the mother of a baby to take a longer leave than the father (e.g. breast feeding).
Therefore, that time shouldn't count as missed work experience (although it factually is).
One can discuss if 16 months is the right time frame (or maybe say for 6 months it doesn't count as missed work experience, anything above that does). That's a different discussion.