U.K. Parental Leave Policy Shortchanges Dads, Poor Mothers

Here's a new study on the British parental leave system ( BBC, 7/14/09). Unsurprisingly, it finds that the U.K.'s system of paid parental leave encourages women to stay at home with the kids and fathers to return to work following the birth of a child. Current leave policy provides mothers six months of paid leave, but fathers only two weeks. By the standards of continental Europe, that's generous toward women and parsimonious toward men. And of course it promotes traditional male/female