Yet another reason - behind military capability and health care - to emulate the EU model of governance and society.

Not.

Swedish and French time off allownces for women who have children (as much as 15 months with pay/benefits), provide huge disincentive to hire these workers. And this is how the pseudo-Communist Labor Unions want it:

Like France, most countries in the European Union provide for some sort of paid parental leave. The European Union Parental Leave Directive sets the minimum standards of three months unpaid leave for each employee. According to a new study of parental leave in European Union countries and Norway, edited by Peter Moss of London University's Institute of Education and Fred Deven of the Flemish Population and Family Study Centre (Parental Leave: Progress or Pitfall?), parental leave policies vary widely across the EU in all aspects perhaps reflecting different national priorities. For example, Britain in 1999 was the last EU member state to make parental leave a legal entitlement and now has Europe's most minimal design: 13 weeks per parent, available in blocks of four weeks per year, with no statutory payment and no flexibility. The study suggests that due to the lack of wage replacement, few British parents will take the leave. In contrast, Sweden has the most developed and generous design with 15 months leave, mostly highly paid, great flexibility and incentives for fathers to participate. Seventy percent of Swedish men take parental leave, including, uniquely, most senior male politicians.

In the U.S., many men and women who work can take unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act for bonding after a child is born. However, there is no national policy of paid maternity leave (although some maternity benefits are paid under state laws like disability in NY, CA, NJ, RI, and HI). According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, "too many women and men simply cannot afford to take unpaid leave, even when their families need them most. The bipartisan Family Leave Commission found that nearly two-thirds of employees who did not take needed leave cited lost wages as the primary reason."

Hence the incentive for Americans to hire and promote women as compared to Europe. In Europe, women (and to a lesser extent men) with families are far less productive. Why hire a woman who you will have to pay while she is having children?

Ironic how the Communists seek equality and the Labor Unions seek to protect workers with their laws that punish business, yet all the Labor Unions are doing is building their own glass ceilings and pushing jobs overseas to areas that do not have these laws that hinder productivity. In the Capitalist versus Socialist (Communist) battle, Capitalism is always going to win. Marx versus Smith--every single round has gone to Adam Smith.

I have three sisters and no brothers, as well as two daughters and no sons. So I have always been firmly on the side of women having their shot at moving up.

However, there is a bit of an annoying side to women making more than men for equal levels of dedication to their jobs. I work at a large company and there is constant pressure to promote diversity, like there is I assume at most large US companies. I am okay with that, but there does get introduced an element of de facto affirmative action. Managers are partially judged for performance on how well they are developing a diverse workforce. So if a man and a woman are equally qualified, they will more often promote the woman. It is just the wise career move for the manager. So this can introduce a subtle form of reverse discrimination.