I think you miss the biggest point. This will have a significant impact on the wages of women. As suddenly women are not longer at a disadvantage when companies need to decide who to hire for a certain position.
That's only true if men actually take the leave, which in a large percentage of cases is not going to happen. The unspoken truth about leave is, you can forget about that promotion you were angling for if you take a couple of months of leave, for whatever reason. So men by and large won't take it, especially when they find themselves under pressure to earn more and provide. I did take my 6 weeks in the US though when we had our son 16 years ago, but only because he wouldn't sleep and the first few months were very rough, so career plans were put on hold.
Also, women will still leave the workplace in droves to care for newborns and the young. That's just what a lot of them prefer to do, and I think it's the right ordering of priorities, for both parents. There's really no way to properly rear young children if both parents have full-time jobs and actually try to advance their careers at the same time.
That having been said, I'm glad this is being introduced. In difficult cases like ours, for instance, this would have been huge help, for reasons not entirely related to work.
A man and a woman can decide that whats best for them is that he not take leave, but for the benefit other people he should take parental leave.
Even if he enjoys working, even if the mother has decided she wants to stay home, even if they need opportunity that work brings (such as the opportunity to get promotions). Even if there are a hundred reasons for a man to not want to take leave, even if taking leave is worse for him, his partner and child, he must take leave so that other people who he may never meet have an advantage.
Yes, encouraging a few weeks off work is good for the family, but forcing someone to take 7 months off of work is massively disruptive. Not even to speak of the disruption on small businesses, that may not be able to accommodate a person leaving for that period of time. If you run a business of 10 people, a single person is 10% of your workforce, and just due to the size you may not have staff to cover the missing expertise.
Forced long-term paternity leave is a system, that explicitly harms the outcomes of one group (working fathers) to provide benefits to others (working mothers, and non-working people in general).
Who is sneering? You can take 2 months off, you can take 2 years off. Take time off for children, sickness, holidays. Its none of my business.
What I am against is the government enforcing someone who must take time off from work, that may not be in their best interests.
I support your right to chose to take time off, and I support your right to not take time off too. I don't support the government telling you, you must take 7 months off at the cost of your career, because you taking time off helps others.
This big point and the big point that you can also be there for you partner. And the big point that you might, as a father, develop a tighter bond with the kid then you would otherwise.
I think you're right in that women's disadvantage decreases, but I don't think it vanishes entirely. As an example, consider the problems many women experience during pregnancy, which is likely to affect their performance at work.
Also, women will still leave the workplace in droves to care for newborns and the young. That's just what a lot of them prefer to do, and I think it's the right ordering of priorities, for both parents. There's really no way to properly rear young children if both parents have full-time jobs and actually try to advance their careers at the same time.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FM.NE.ZS?en...
That having been said, I'm glad this is being introduced. In difficult cases like ours, for instance, this would have been huge help, for reasons not entirely related to work.