A quick google search suggests they do.

http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-developm...

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-211-x/2009000/part-partie1-e...

Not all female absenteeism is due to children. Menstruation also plays a significant role (as evidenced by a 28-day periodic spike in absenteeism for women):

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12369

You have to wonder, sometime around when you typed the word "menstruation" into a comment on Hacker News about job interviews, did any kind of warning light go on in your head saying "maybe I'm off in the weeds here"?

I have a really neat-o idea. How about we interview people based on their ability to actually perform a task, and then set, oh, I don't know, a 5-10 day limit to the number of allowable personal days in a year? We don't even have to give the women more of those days, despite their children and special times of the month. Hell, if we're worried that they're going to exploit their personal days to take care of sick children, we can just reduce the number of days.

Then we never have to talk about this issue in interviews or, god willing, on Hacker News again. I think that's a win. What do you think?

I haven't seen statistics in a long time, but my recollection is that women are more likely than men to take time off work for caring for a sick child, taking the child to a doctor's appointment, meeting school counselors and so on. Women are also far more likely than men to quit their own job in order to follow their spouse to a new city when the spouse changes jobs. Quiting your job because you got offered a different one usually is a career move forward. Quitting because you are following someone else is a career setback. Married women are more likely than married men to attend whatever college is "local". Married men are more likely than married women to pick a college that suits their career goals and move the entire family there. Women are more likely than men to quit their job or take time off for caring other family members as well, not just children (such as elderly parents). And the list goes on and on...or did the last time I saw such stats.