Parental leaves are critical for gender equality as they help employees manage both having careers and children, and recent trends in many countries including Canada entail encouraging longer parental leaves. Yet, past research shows that longer parental leaves can have unintended negative career impacts, especially for women, while the effects for men are less well understood. In this talk, I will present data examining the effect of parental leaves on both women’s and men’s careers. I will first present a set of studies examining effects of longer (one year and above) parental leaves on women’s careers. Given that past research shows that longer parental leaves may unintentionally harm women’s career progress, while they are also beneficial for the health of mothers and babies, here we sought to identify the mechanism underlying negative effects of longer (vs. shorter) maternity leaves: undermined perceptions of agency. That is, to enable mothers to do both, i.e., take longer maternity leaves and advance their careers, it was important to identify an underlying mechanism and consequently utilize this knowledge to test interventions that boost agency perceptions and mitigate negative effects of longer parental leaves. In a context of Canadian parental leave policies, we found that undermined perceptions of agency mediated the negative effects of a longer (i.e., one year) compared to a shorter (i.e., one month) maternity leave on job commitment (Study 1); providing information about a woman’s agency mitigates the unintended negative effects of a longer maternity leave (Study 2); and the usage of an organizational program that enables women to stay in touch with the workplace while on maternity leaves enhances agency perceptions and mitigates negative consequences (Study 3). Next, given that true gender equality involves men’s experiences as well, I will present findings from two studies on the effects of parental leaves on men’s career outcomes. Contrary to the negative effects of parental leaves on women’s careers, we theorized and found in a sample of undergraduate students (Study 4) and employees (Study 5) that the effects of parental leaves on men’s careers can be positive due to others’ enhanced perceptions of men’s “communality,” i.e., traits generally ascribed to women such as warmth, friendliness, and a sensitivity to the needs of others. Implications for theory, practice, and gender equality broadly are discussed.