According to some economists, demography is economic destiny. Women are doing more than their fair share of nurturing a growing population. You’d think the economy would give them recognition for this service, yet motherhood means, for most, a hit to pay and progression. In Australia, women with one child earn 5％ less than those with no child. For women with two or more children, the wage penalty rises to 9％. Besides, about 15％ of mothers report experiencing discrimination in relation to performance assessments and career advancement while on or requesting parental leave.

On the contrary, men seem to get moderate pay bumps along with fist bumps when they become parents, with estimates ranging between no impact on their pay and a 2％ increase. So, let’s get this straight. Women are 2.5 times more likely to take parental leave than men, yet there’s a wage premium for being a dad and a wage penalty for being a mum. It doesn’t seem to stack up. Why aren’t new dads more likely to take time off?

Some of the reasons are pragmatic. Given that breastfeeding is difficult, though not impossible, for men and that mums need time to recover from childbirth, if there’s a choice between maternity leave (women’s paid parental leave) and paternity leave (men’s paid parental leave) for a newborn, maternity leave is prioritised.

Other reasons are societal. Mothers are often expected to take time off. Whether a woman is taking enough leave or not seems to be a popular water cooler conversation. Fathers—not so much. Patriarchal views still argue that men should be breadwinners, not caregivers and that men who spend more time with their families are less committed to their work.

What really gets me, though, are the financial reasons. Birth mothers of newborn children in Australia are entitled by law to up to 18 weeks of paid leave. Birth fathers? Just two weeks of paid leave. Here we have a law which explicitly discriminates against men on the basis of biological sex. In doing so, the law deepens old social gender roles and expectations.

Yes, providing more paid paternity leave would involve some cost to taxpayers. But it would also provide an economic boost. Paid paternity leave encourages mothers to go back to work earlier and incentivises people to become parents. At a time when population growth seems as difficult to achieve as economic growth, providing equal paid parental leave could be the thing which encourages our next baby boom—and our ticket out of a recession. Normally, an increased fertility rate is economic short-term pain (lower participation rates) for long-term gain (larger workforce).

It is argued that Australian’s law on paid parental leave is________.