[jaredklewis]

> In a perfectly rational market, neither mother or father would disproportionately decide to make one choice or another to prioritize or de-prioritize work at the expense or benefit of raising children. Equal numbers of men would be making that same choice as women do.

Why are you sure of this? Doesn’t this assume that men and women’s natural dispositions to work and childcare are identical? Are they? If so, how do we know?

The shape of the current market could be the reflection of discrimination alone, but I suspect there are other factors.

To me, it seems very difficult to isolate what market phenomena are due to culture and which are due our nature, or what the balance between the two is.

I like the idea of paternity leave (though I feel a little bad for those citizens that choose not to have children), but I doubt it’s going to close the wage gap, or result in a 50/50 split of house wives with working husbands and house husbands with working wives.