Baby boomers – my parents’ generation – have without exception been shocked when I tell them I’m about to embark on six months of paternity leave.

From Monday until May(!) I’ll be at home looking after baby number two, all while being paid my normal salary. Cue lots of head shaking and expressions of amazement at the kindness of my employer.

What’s interesting of course is that the same generation is almost universally in receipt of defined benefit or “final salary” style pensions.

The generosity of these pensions is such that many British companies have been driven to the brink of crisis over the years.

At the least, they have been severely hampered by having to divert billions of pounds that might have been spent on expansion and reinvestment into staff pension funds.

The British Airways owner IAG, BT, Royal Mail and countless others have all been held back by the promises made to staff who may have left decades ago.

That’s not to say that I think those employees don’t deserve their excellent pensions (though when it comes to the gold-plated MPs’ scheme it’s hard not to think they have it too good).

The point is that what we consider to be a good, bad or brilliant benefit of working at a particular company is changing as pensions shrink and priorities change.

You don’t need to be a maths whizz to realise it is far, far cheaper for The Telegraph to pay me for six months of not working than to keep its promise to pay half the final salary of a former employee for 30 years of retirement.

The retired now in receipt of those top-quality pensions are right to point out that they haven’t had it all good. As recently as the 1970s, there was no maternity leave at all. Fathers certainly didn’t have any time off, and most dads were back at the coalface (in some cases literally) the next morning. Even now, most men barely take a fortnight.

For people in their 20s and 30s with plans for children, extended paternity leave like mine is a real incentive and is offered by very few companies (the insurance giant Aviva is a notable exception). Pensions, on the other hand, are a difficult sell to all but the most informed, or those nearing retirement who want to stuff pots while they can.

The so-called Great Resignation, a Covid-era phenomenon that has seen record numbers of people quit their jobs, makes boring old workplace benefits more pertinent than ever.