There seems to be snowballing evidence that providing flexibility at workplaces, having access to paid leave, helps everybody, and it helps women, perhaps more than anybody else.

Not only in providing them what they need, but in providing opportunities for men to do more at home, for men to be more engaged.

Businesses are more successful when they hire women: more collaborative,3 more profitable,4 more inclusive.5 Women are in fact more effective leaders,6 less likely to take unnecessary risks,7 great at multitasking,8 and have higher emotional intelligence9— as the Harvard Business Review put it, “one of the least counter-intuitive findings in the

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In summary, the authors note, “taking time off work following the birth of a child may enable fathers to become more engaged parents, contributing to reduced role conflicts, a more equitable division of household labor, and stronger relationships with mothers.”

Our work demonstrates that this policy, although conceptually desirable, in practice has not changed decisions of an average household with regards to who is the primary caregiver of the child in their first year of life. This is an important finding, particularly in a society that seeks to reduce gender inequalities at work and in which parents... See more