Almost all other advanced nations provide three or four months paid leave -- to fathers as well as mothers. Plus paid sick leave, generous vacation time, and limits on how many work hours employers can demand.
The second thing to know about the new family-friendly work policies is that relatively few talented millennials are taking advantage of them.
They can't take the time.
One of my former Berkeley students who's now at a tech firm across the Bay told me he's working 15-hour days.
Another, who's at a Washington law firm, said she's on call 24-7. Emails often arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why the emails haven't been answered.
These young men won't take paternity leave and these young women won't even get pregnant -- because it looks bad.
Forget work-life balance. It's work-as-life.
A recent New York Times story about Amazon reports that when young workers hit the wall from the unrelenting pace, they're told to climb it.
Why do the talented millennials work so hard?
Partly because being promoted -- getting more equity, running a division, making partner -- promises such vast rewards. Vaster rewards than any generation before them has ever been offered.
Also, you're either on the fast track or you're on a dead-end road.
"I've got to show total dedication," one of my former students explained. "It's all or nothing."
Which is why millennial men -- who research shows have more egalitarian attitudes about family and gender roles than their predecessors -- are nonetheless failing to live up to their values once they hit the treadmills.
It's also why women on such high-powered career tracks are delaying or ultimately giving up on being mothers.
Or they're giving up on the fast track.
After the collapse of 2000, the share of women working in high tech dropped sharply. And although tech recovered, female participation is still 6 percent lower than in 1998.
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