"We’ll continue to have this kind of blatant discrimination against all women (even those that don’t plan on having children) until it’s equally possible and likely that a man will take parental leave as a woman is to take it. Sweden is on such a path. Couples get to split 18 months of leave any way they see fit. It’s part of the culture in Sweden that men should have just as much responsibility for raising a child as women (they’re not exactly there yet in practice, but they are making significant progress). It’s refreshing, it’s fair, and I think it makes the lives of families here that much better.

Trying to get the birth rate up may be one reason that European family policies are so generous, but it’s certainly not the only concern. Since WWII, most European citizens have come to a consensus that its the state’s responsibility to improve people’s quality of life and to provide a generous safety net. As their country’s get richer, their lives become tangibly better (more vacation time, more leave, shorter work days, free higher education, not to mention health care). In the U.S., our country has become richer and richer, yet it seems that only businesses and the already wealthy in our society benefit. The rest of us work longer and longer hours, pay outrageous amounts for health care (or are tethered to our employers just for the health benefits), pay more and more for higher education, make do with 10 days of vacation, if that, and take almost no parental or sick leave.

You can continue to believe that all of this self-sacrifice is what makes America so prosperous. But what exactly is prosperity if we have a much higher poverty rate in this country than almost any country in Europe? What does prosperity mean to the average worker, if in America you get 10 days off to enjoy that prosperity, but in Europe you get at least 4 weeks? How much better off are we, really, if American men almost never get the opportunity to nurture their own children at the very beginning of their newborn’s lives? I think we can do better."

From a commenter, Yelizavetta Kofman who works for the Lattice Group, on this entry at Matthew Yglesias's blog at ThinkProgress.