Finland's government has announced a plan to give both parents of a child the same 164 days - around six and a half months - of paid parental leave.
They say it's part of their efforts to "improve equality between parents and make the lives of diverse families easier".
Under the new rules, parents can also transfer 69 days from their own quota to the other parent.
Dr Sheila Garrity, lecturer of Early Childhood Studies in the UNESCO Child & Family Research Centre in NUIG, spoke to Newstalk Breakfast about the idea of 'split leave'.
She observed: "It makes lots of sense for a lot of areas - for gender equity, for children's well-being... and it makes economic sense.
"Finland is actually playing catch-up with some of their Scandanavian neighbours: Sweden and Norway certainly have led the way for looking at leave for parents as a shared experience, rather than loading it on one parent."
She pointed to evidence from other countries showing that more parents began taking up their leave entitlements when it became a 'use it or lose it' benefit.
She suggested: "Research following that found that fathers or the other parent - it's not always a father - was then much more involved in a child's life going into the creche, going into school and other aspects of a child's life."
"Interestingly, some research coming out of the US [...] is finding that where fathers are more involved in their child's life, the chances of the relationship lasting is stronger.
"Marital breakdown is less likely where parents share those early months in the first year of a child's life, to combine care and work."
In terms of the current Irish situation, Dr Garrity suggested: "The parties in this election are making some promises to increase paternity and maternity leave.
"Fine Gael yesterday was highlighting that in their manifesto they're going to be increasing leave for both parents.
"Lots of the parties are talking about working up towards 12 months of leave - [Social] Democrats, People Before Profit, Sinn Féin... They're not all talking about how that would be divided, though, so the devil is in the detail."
