The left-wing parties around the world and in New Zealand have long tried to keep women’s wages down and hold their careers back by increasing the generosity of maternity leave.
Francine Blau argues that:
- Family-friendly policies make it easier for women to combine work and family and women’s advancement at work. Such policies facilitate the labor force entry of less career-oriented women (or of women who are at a stage in the life cycle when they would prefer to reduce labor market commitments).
- Long, paid parental leaves and part-time work may encourage women who would have otherwise had a stronger labor force commitment to take part-time jobs or lower-level
positions. - Such policies may lead employers to engage in statistical discrimination against women for jobs leading to higher-level positions, if employers cannot tell which women are likely to avail themselves of these options and which are not. These policies may leave women less likely to be considered for high-level positions.
More women will work more women will work as a result of maternity leave, but more of these women all work part time, instead of full-time.
At bottom, paying women to spend extended periods of time out of the workforce at crucial times of their career in their late 20s and their 30s does them no favours in terms of advancing their careers.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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