In a move to boost recruitment and retention while keeping upwith the corporate Joneses, American Express Co. said it will offer20 weeks of paid leave to any U.S. employee of eithergender who has a child through any means, including adoption andsurrogacy. Birth mothers will get an additional six to eight weeksof paid medical leave on top of that.

The announcement is a huge leap forward by the credit cardcompany, since it currently makes separate provisions for primaryand secondary caregivers of six and two weeks paid leave,respectively.

Related: 10 countries with the most parentalleave

As companies like AmEx compete for talent in a tightening labormarket, generous parental leave that doesn’t distinguish betweenmoms, dads, or birth parents is slowly replacing maternity andpaternity leave policies in the most competitive industries. Techfirms, in part because of their difficulty with recruiting andretaining women, have led the way. Etsy Inc., for example, nowoffers 26 paid weeks off for all new parents; Netflix Inc. offersup to a year.

But other industries have been quick to follow. Bank of AmericaCorp. and Fidelity both expanded leave policies last spring.

“We are taking a close look at the market and where themarket is moving overall. We think 20 is a generous step,” saidKevin Cox, the chief human resources officer at AmEx. “Ouremployees are generally saying we want more help and moresupport. These are busy people with busy lives.”

Indeed, 20 weeks of paid leave to any parent is aggressive. Evenfinancial behemoths like Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc, and GoldmanSachs Group Inc. offer only 16 weeks to primary caregivers, andmuch less to secondary caregivers.

But the larger reality is that most U.S. workers don’tget paid family leave at all. Yet, access is steadilyincreasing. Last year, New York and San Francisco passed paidfamily leave laws, and, President elect Donald Trump said duringhis campaign that he would push for six weeks of paid family leavefor new mothers.

Related: Moms get more paid parental leave, surveysays

Meanwhile, to stay competitive, companies have engaged in aparental leave arms race. According to the Society of HumanResource Management, 21 percent of large U.S. corporations offeredpaid maternity leave in 2015, up from 12 percent in 2014.

Still, the benefit is unevenly distributed to high skilledworkers and people who live in cities and states that have lawsmandating leave. Many sectors and organizations still offer no paidleave. “The manufacturing sector tends to be more midsize smallerand midsize companies, and they’re not at that point wherethey are moving that aggressively toward parental leave,” said LisaHorn, who heads up SHRM’s Workplace Flexibility Initiative. “Thereis a slow uptick in the number, which we take as a positive sign,but there is more work to be done there.”

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