Parental leave is exclusive to parenting. See the original comment:

> Some countries give more than a year paid parental leave

You yourself are making my point by saying “similar compensation” “albeit spread across the length of a career.” There is nothing for non-parents that is equivalent to parental leave.

Thanks for clarifying your perspective. Honestly it just seems very narrow and pedantic since even non-parents benefit from efforts to blunt the incredible costs of parenting. It leads to quality of life improvements, even if modest, for families. Non-parents themselves, and all their friends, love interests, and family have to come from parents somehow. If society does nothing to help then more parents will choose to have fewer, or no, children.

And these leave benefits are just so miniscule compared to the effort and finances required for each child. So why complain about missing them?

A paid year away from work is not minuscule. The benefits of somebody else having kids is minuscule to me.

> If society does nothing to help then more parents will choose to have fewer, or no, children.

Fewer people is our best option (it is still a terrible option, don't get me wrong) for mitigating the effects of climate change.

> The benefits of somebody else having kids is minuscule to me.

Your parents having you is a miniscule benefit to you?

Yes. If my parents didn’t have me the world would be better off (not any kind of downer, just a fact that I take more from the world than I give — like nearly everybody) and I wouldn’t know the difference because I wouldn’t exist.