This story appears in the January 2026 issue of Utah Business. Subscribe.
Imagine two new parents in Utah excitedly bringing home their first baby. One parent has six weeks of paid leave, but the other has just one. By the time they both return to work, their family routines, caregiving roles and career trajectories have already begun to diverge in ways that ripple for years. This small difference is one of the most overlooked contributors to the gender leadership gap.
Nationally, only 40 percent of companies offer paid parental leave, with an average of six weeks for mothers and one week for fathers. This disparity creates a chain reaction with far-reaching implications for women’s long-term career advancement.
According to a report from the National Library of Medicine, 76 percent of fathers return to work before their baby is even two weeks old, leaving mothers to handle the intensive, round-the-clock childcare. Because mothers take a substantially longer leave, they develop stronger early attachment and greater caregiving knowledge and confidence. This naturally positions them as the default or primary caregiver, even among couples who intended to share responsibilities equally. National time-use data reflect this shift: In families where both parents work full-time, mothers provide an average of 19 hours of childcare weekly, compared to fathers’ 11.4 hours — over an entire extra workday.
Once this dynamic is established, mothers become the parent most likely to handle sick days, medical appointments and no-school days, leading them to take more time off and appear less available at work. Supervisors often (incorrectly) interpret these patterns as indicating that those individuals are less committed or less ready for leadership, which limits access to stretch opportunities, sponsorship and other experiences that can lead to promotion over time. The leadership gap does not begin with ambition; it begins with parental leave.
The solution is not less time off for mothers, but equal time off for fathers.
When fathers take longer leave, research consistently shows they remain more involved in childcare for years. This reduces the motherhood penalty, leading to improved physical and mental health for mothers. Longer paternity leave also leads to couples reporting greater relationship satisfaction, better child well-being outcomes, and higher paternal well-being and stronger father-child bonds. In the workplace, studies show that taking paternity leave actually enhances perceptions of men’s empathy and leadership potential in the workplace.
Several employers in Utah are already showing what meaningful parental leave can look like. For example, Adobe provides up to 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for parents. Qualtrics offers six weeks of paid family leave to all parents, including those in same-sex couples. These companies are not doing this out of charity, but because equal leave improves retention, strengthens cultures and builds more diverse leadership pipelines.
For business leaders, equal parental leave is one of the highest-impact, lowest-cost levers available to accelerate gender equity. It starts with a simple question: What might happen if every new father in Utah had the time he needed to show up at home, support his partner and bond with his child? The answer is a stronger workforce and a stronger community.