Well, in Europe you don't pay the whole salary during the leave (details depend on the country but it's something like you pay for one month and then the govern

Well, in Europe you don't pay the whole salary during the leave (details depend on the country but it's something like you pay for one month and then the government pays from social security fund) you just have obligations like keeping the position open. This has many problems though anyway as it just offloads most of the financial burden but doesn't offload the organizational one. It also doesn't make any sense to make the employer responsible for maternity leave as it doesn't make sense to make them responsible for healthcare (which Europe gets right). If you're someone who wants to pay above market rates then you're a target as maternity leave depends on your salary. The problem is difficult because we need a system in which having children at young age isn't a career suicide. Maternity leave as implemented in Europe is definitely not it as the incentives are to first get to a decent salary and only then have children. One idea which I think makes sense is to allow children to have % of their taxes to go to their parents directly. Allow children to opt out to punish especially shitty parents. This I think aligns the incentives pretty well (to have children while young, to take good care of them, to educate them etc.)