Paternity Leave Around the World

New York Times screams "In Sweden, Men can have it all". Well, actually they can. I quote: Birgitta Ohlsson, European affairs minister, put it this way: “Machos with dinosaur values don’t make the top-10 lists of attractive men in women’s magazines anymore.” Ms. Ohlsson, who has lobbied European Union governments to pay more attention to fathers, is eight months pregnant, and her husband, a law professor, will take the leave when their child is born.
“Now men can have it all — a successful career and being a responsible daddy,” she added. “It’s a new kind of manly. It’s more wholesome.”
Sweden is the front runner when it comes to relieving harassed mommies and giving daddies a chance to actually play dad. Pre school from 12 months is highly subsidised, grandparents get state sponsored care, leave-taking parent can take one year off at full salary. And both parents can work 6 hour days till the child starts school.
Which other countries have gone the "daddy months" way.
US does not have any rules regarding mandated paid leave, though their rules mandates unpaid leave to most US fathers. Portugal has mandatory leave for dads, but for one week only. Iceland has 3 months leave for fathers, 3 months formothers and 3 months shared. Germany provides 14 months total leave for parents, 2 of which are reserved for fathers. In Denmark, 2 weeks of 52 weeks leave is reserved for dads. Bulgaria has one year maternity leave, but the father can swap this with the mother. Most of Europe has about 5 days to one week leave.
The Americas however is far behind. Only Brazil has 5 days leave. Canada has unpaid or semi-paid leave which can be shared with the mother. Some countries like Uruguay, Guatemala and Chile have one day to 3 days leave.
Kenya leads the African countries with 2 weeks paternity leave while some countries like Tanzania and Seychelles have 5 to 10 days. In Asia only Philippines currently has 7 days fully paid paternal leave, Israel dads can take leave in place of mothers, Indonesia, Myanmar and Saudia has 1-6 days leave.
(Stats from Wikipedia)
The blogger 'An American Dad in a Swedish Fatherhood' has taken all the data available on wikipedia and have made a world map of Maternity and Paternity leaves. Its available here.

India has 12 weeks paid maternity leave but no provision for paternity leave. Even Bangladesh is planning 15 days leave for new fathers. Both India and Bangladesh have 6 months maternal leave. (B'desh law pending from 4 months presently).

Let us take this a step further. Does paternity leave spell greater gender equality? Lets take Sweden again. In this land of Viking lore, men are at the heart of the gender-equality debate. The ponytailed center-right finance minister calls himself a feminist, ads for cleaning products rarely feature women as homemakers, and preschools vet books for gender stereotypes in animal characters. For nearly four decades, governments of all political hues have legislated to give women equal rights at work — and men equal rights at home. (NYTimes)

Men are expected to take leave and are not penalised. Womens paychecks benefit, and socially too, divorce rates have gone down. Most important, the socially accepted norms of masculinity is changing in the country.
It has been seen that women take more leave for their children not because they are socially driven to it, but because they are paid lower. This is a vicious cycle of course, the more leave women take the lesser they will be paid. A study published by the Swedish Institute of Labor Market Policy Evaluation in March showed, for instance, that a mother’s future earnings increase on average 7 percent for every month the father takes leave. (NYTimes)

Is it time to rethink child related leaves through out the world?