I don't think we should compare voluntary time off to raising a family. I don't have kids, and I know it's voluntary to have kids, so one could make the argument we should equate both.

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.

It definitely is not equal. Having a kid likely means much less time for side projects and continuous learning and has a huge impact on sleep quality. It will most definitely have a negative impact on skill and productivity unless one makes up for it with more grit and harder work.

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.

Did your sabbatical affect future pay raises?

Raises, vacations (when I was at companies that gave them based on tenure), promotion considerations, you name it.

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.