And it usually ends with the mother taking 12 and the dad taking 2, and these 2 being spent on a longer vacation somewhere.

There are many reasons, it seems to me that external circumstances are shaping a lot of them.

Yeah that's a pattern you see in most places with any kind of shared pool. The father takes a small, frequently the legal minimum time, and the mother takes the rest. Ultimately it kind of makes the most sense because it is the woman that's gone through the most work of giving birth and is a natural food source for the kid but it does perpetuate the issue of women's careers being set back by having a kid.

When they have that much freedom, can you really call it "perpetuating the issue" instead of "doing what they want"? It's not an issue for the women who prefer to do it, or they wouldn't be doing it.

It's not entirely a choice it's socially usually seen as weird for the guy to take more than the minimum or some small portion above that in many of these places. And even if it is a completely free choice (when do those ever exist?) the impact to women's careers extend beyond the setback from leaving the workforce for several months because they're still expected to do more of the labor of child rearing.

edit: To expand ultimately societies and governments need women to have kids, as of now they're the only ones who can after all so I think eliminating as many downsides as possible to that is something that should be done.

It's an issue for everyone. When you can expect any younger woman to suddenly take a year off they become a larger hiring risk compared to men. Equalizing the parental leave time changes things also for those without children.

In the new system in Finland, both parents get 6.6 months, of which they can give up to 69 days to the other parent. But in other words we can also say that both parents get 4.3 months, and then there is 4.6 months that they can divide between themselves.

In Czechia, there is similar approach to paid parental leave, but it is up to 36 months.

I think that this is much better to left it to parents to decide how to split that based on their personal preferences, than to force equal split in all cases.

Is there more to this, or can you really just be employed to make babies? Most couples can produce another baby before the leave expires.

In Germany it's not restricted to just parents. Could also be the new grandmother taking a few month off.

Do parents typically work at the same workplace? How does this work across employers?

Generally, the parents work in different places of course.

As parental leave is a legal right (not given by the employers), employers simply have to comply with the parents' wishes. In the past employers often frowned upon men taking parental leave, but the younger generation has absolutely normalized this behavior.

It should also be noted that during leave, the government picks up (part of) your regular paycheck - so you don't cost your employer anything while you're not there. (except administration overhead etc)

The parental leave doesn't have to be taken in one block and you can also convert it into 'parental part-time'. A somewhat common pattern that double-earning professional parents choose nowadays that I've seen with some of my team members is something like: 1. simultaneous leave for both partners in the 1-2 months after birth 2. leave of one partner for a few months after that while the other partner works full-time 3. a few months of simultaneous part-time (e.g. 3/days week) where on any given day, one partner is at home 4. full-time work of both partners for a while once the kid is old enough for day-care 5. another month or so of simultaneous parental leave after 1-1.5 years that's used for a vacation.