Article

The State Intervenes in the Battle of the Sexes: Causal Effects of Paternity Leave

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Abstract

Do family policies influence attitudes and behavior or are they merely reflections of pre-existing attitudes? We consider the implementation of the Norwegian daddy quota, 4 weeks of parental leave reserved for the father, as a natural experiment, and examine the long-run causal effects on attitudes toward gender equality, on conflicts and sharing of household labor, and on support for public childcare. We find that respondents who had their last born child just after the reform report an 11% lower level of conflicts over household division of labor and that they are 50% more likely to equally divide the task of washing clothes than respondents who had their last child just before the reform.Highlights► We consider the introduction of paternity leave in Norway as a natural experiment. ► We study the effects on attitudes, on conflicts and sharing of household labor. ► We find substantive effects on conflicts and on the task of washing clothes.

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... For example, couples in Norway who experienced the designated month of care for fathers (often referred to as a "daddy's quota") reported fewer disagreements over housework than those who did not have a month of fathers providing care (Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). In contrast, a study conducted in the United Kingdom (Miller, 2011) found that fathers conveyed desires to participate in daily care activities, but by oneyear follow-ups, fathers had reverted to traditional gender roles. ...
... Countries were given a code of 1 if they required a man to take a compulsory leave upon the birth of a child (as some countries do with maternity leaves). A code of 2 was given for what is termed a "father quota," or a set period of time that does not interfere with the mother's time and provides extra benefits to the family when a father utilizes the leave (Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). Countries that kept mothers' and fathers' leaves independent from each other were coded with a 3. Finally, in countries in which there was a shared leave, such that fathers taking leave would reduce the time available to mothers, as well as those countries that offered no parental leave at all, were given a code of 4. ...
... In Sweden, for example, both parents receive a sum of money for each day that they share equally of leave. As Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011) find, cultural norms seem to support these policies. Fathers in these nations have relatively high levels of uptake for leaves, and take longer leaves on average than fathers in other countries (Brandth & Kvandt, 2014;Duvander 2014;Salmi & Lammi-Taskula, 2014 ). ...
... Leave may also situate them in a better position to communicate and make decisions regarding divisions of labor within the household. A natural experiment study by Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011) examined the division of labor within households in Norway before and after the introduction of a policy which expanded paternity leave. They found that after the introduction of the policy, couples experienced less conflict over the division of labor within the household. ...
... Our central question was the following: Is paternity leave length taken in the first several months of parenthood associated with subsequent maternal gatekeeping behavior and attitudes at nine months postpartum? Based on previous research that found a positive association between leave and coparenting relationship quality (Lidbeck & Bernhardsson, 2019;Petts & Knoester, 2020), as well as research indicating that leave may encourage gender equality (Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011) or alter gender identity as it relates to parenting (Brandth & Kvande, 2018;Johansson, 2011), we expected that longer paternity leave would be associated with more maternal gateopening, less maternal gateclosing, and weaker gateclosing attitudes. ...
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The current study examined associations between the length of paternity leave taken by new fathers and maternal gatekeeping behavior and attitudes (i.e., mothers’ encouragement or discouragement of fathers’ involvement in parenting). Survey data on fathers’ and mothers’ leave length, maternal gatekeeping behavior and attitudes, and psychological and demographic covariates were drawn from a longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood among a sample of 130 dual-earner, different-sex couples in the U.S. Path analysis indicated that longer paternity leave time was associated with lower maternal gateclosing behaviors and attitudes. Paternity leave length was not related to maternal gateopening behavior. Mothers’ leave time was not related to maternal gatekeeping. The use of paternity leave may benefit the coparenting relationship between mothers and fathers by reducing maternal gateclosing behaviors and attitudes, making space for fathers to be more independent and involved parents and for mothers and fathers to adopt more egalitarian parental roles.
... The small previous literature has primarily focused on paternity leave, with mixed findings regarding its e!ects on fathers' involvement (Canaan et al., 2022). Some studies find no e!ects of paternity leave on fathers' involvement in childcare or changes in the allocation of labour supply between parents (e.g., Ekberg et al., 2013, Cools et al., 2015. 2 Other studies suggest that paternity leave increases fathers' engagement in household chores and childcare (e.g., Kotsadam and Finseraas, 2011, Bünning, 2015, Patnaik, 2019, Tamm, 2019, Eerola et al., 2022, González and Zoabi, 2021. 3 However, the e!ects are often limited to specific household tasks or certain time frames (such as support on weekends). Moreover, the e!ects depend on the design of the parental leave system (e.g., Duvander et al., 2019, Canaan, 2022. ...
... involvement (Kotsadam and Finseraas, 2011, Patnaik, 2019, Eerola et al., 2022, González and Zoabi, 2021, our probably most sobering finding is that initial increases in paternal leave take-up caused by the childcare expansion do not materialise in increased paternal involvement later on. 23 One explanation is that most previous papers find that changes in fathers' engagement relate to housework; increases in paternal childcare often occur on weekends (Tamm, 2019). ...
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Increasing fathers' involvement in childcare is seen as an important strategy to reduce women's child penalties in the labour market. However, very little is known about the extent to which family policies can enhance fathers' engagement in domestic work. This paper examines the impact of the combined availability of universal childcare and paternity leave on fathers' involvement. We exploit quasi-experimental variation in the regional availability of childcare for children under three, resulting from the introduction of a universal childcare entitlement in Germany. We estimate generalised difference-in-differences models and confirm that children enter childcare significantly earlier. Fathers become more likely to take paternity leave with the expectation of mothers entering the labour market sooner. Yet, this leave is mainly taken for the minimum period, together with the mother, and towards the end of the first year. Fathers' subsequent roles as caregivers, as well as their labour market outcomes, remain largely unaffected. Overall, increased childcare availability primarily substitutes maternal care; significant family policy efforts could not immediately alter fathers' caregiving responsibilities within the family. Keywords: Public childcare, family policies, parental leave, paternal involvement, child penalty, Kita-Ausbau, U3, Elterngeld, Vätermonate JEL Codes: J13, J16, J18, J22, D13
... Uptake of paternity leave is very low when it is not mandatory (i.e., when employers can refuse a request), such as in the US, Australia, and the UK (Bartel et al., 2018;Baum & Ruhm, 2016;Han et al., 2009;Hosking et al., 2010;Huerta et al., 2013;Nepomnyaschy & Waldfogel, 2007;Tanaka & Waldfogel, 2007), while it is higher if leave is mandatory, or short and paid at, or near, income replacement level (Moss, 2015). The implementation of fathers' quotas on parental leave, as in many Nordic countries, has increased leave take-up (Cools et al., 2015;Ekberg et al., 2013;Haas & Hwang, 2008;Hart et al., 2022;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011, 2013Rege & Solli, 2013;Sundström & Duvander, 2002), for results from the forerunner countries, i.e., Sweden and Norway; Kotsadam & Finseraas 2013 for Germany; Kotsadam & Finseraas 2019 for Quebec). However, the characteristics of fathers who take paternity leave appear to be relatively similar across different national contexts: they are generally more advantaged, better educated, in higher prestige occupations, and have greater incomes. ...
... The few available studies, focusing on this outcome, show a positive effect of paternity leave on the relative involvement of fathers in domestic tasks. Parents who had a child after the introduction of father quotas in Norway, are more likely to equally divide domestic tasks 15 years later (Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). Men exposed to a 5-week fathers' quota in Quebec spent more time on housework, especially on shopping, DIY (do-it-yourself) and repairs while exposed women spent less time on housework, specifically, on housekeeping and cooking (Patnaik, 2019). ...
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To foster gender equality and involve fathers in parenting, leave-from-work targeted at fathers has been implemented in many countries. In France, until 2021, fathers can avail of a statutory paid paternity leave of 11 working-days that must be taken within 4 months after childbirth. This article estimates the impact of this short-duration and large coverage paternity leave on the gender division of domestic and parental tasks. We measure the effect of paternity leave using the Elfe survey, a national cohort of children born in 2011. We take advantage of the timing of the 2-month survey: some fathers had already taken their leave, while others intended to but had not done so by then. Taking paternity leave leads to a more equal division of several parental tasks. It affects sharing of domestic activities only marginally. The effect on child-rearing tasks is greater for first-time parents and differs by father’s education level. Paternity leave may provide the opportunity to learn how to perform child-related tasks to fathers, and involving them early in parenting.
... The duration of each leave varies across countries and only the parental leave is ever transferable between spouses (Moss, 2013;Ray et al., 2010). In time, most policies have been made more generous either through extended leave duration, increased benefits, less stringent eligibility rules, or any combination thereof (Social Policy Division, 2017). 1 The rationale for more generous policies is that they are beneficial to children's development and well-being (Baker & Milligan, 2010Berger et al., 2005;Brandth & Gislason, 2012;Ruhm, 2000), to maternal mental health (Aitken et al., 2015;Avendano et al., 2015;Bullinger, 2019;Bütikofer et al., 2021), and that extended paternity leaves usually lead to a greater sharing of domestic responsibilities (Akerlof & Kranton, 2010;Bianchi, 2011;Bünning, 2015;Coltrane, 1996;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011;Pailhé et al., 2018;Patnaik, 2019), although there is considerable heterogeneity across settings (Canaan et al., 2022;Pronzato, 2009). ...
... Yet, the lesser sensitivity of partnered mothers at the kink may arise for different reasons. Thus, fathers who take a paternity or a parental leave may signal a willingness to assume their share of the domestic tasks as found in Kotsadam andFinseraas (2011), Bünning (2015), Pailhé et al. (2018), and in Patnaik (2019) and Parental Insurance Management Council (CGAP; 22 in the specific case of Quebec. Indeed, this conjecture is entirely consistent with the findings of a recent QPIP paper (CGAP, 2020) which stresses that households in which the parental leave is shared between spouses use less than the 20 The linear model yields the highest AIC criterion in each sample. ...
Article
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Over the past 25 years, the Government of Quebec (Canada) has introduced a number of relatively novel policies aimed at fighting poverty such as the Universal Child Care Program (UCCP) in 1997 and the Quebec Parental Insurance Program (QPIP) in 2006. Since its inception, the QPIP has provided a means‐tested supplementary benefits scheme for disadvantaged households. The scheme yields a well‐defined kink in the benefits schedule with respect to two entirely exogenous criteria. Using the QPIP administrative data files from 2006 to 2017, we estimate the causal impact of the supplemental benefits on leave duration and participation of poor households within a sharp Regression Kink Design (RKD) approach. Our results indicate that single mothers are relatively responsive to additional benefits. Conversely, partnered mothers are not found to respond to the supplemental benefits, irrespective of fathers’ own participation in the parental leave. The Canadian government is currently considering introducing a similar parental leave program. Our results may prove useful for the design of the program.
... Accumulated over the seven years, the estimates above compare to about 40-50% of the earnings increase associated with a promotion from an assistant shop manager to a shop manager or from a carpenter to a head carpenter in Norway. 27 Panel C of Table 2 presents the IV estimates, which correspond to the local average treatment effect (LATE) of being exposed to a larger share of leave-taking competitors, induced by their reform eligibility. The estimates in column 4 show that as the share of leave-taking competitors increases by 0.31 (1 SD in the sample), the post-child earnings of a focal father are on 27. ...
... 27 Panel C of Table 2 presents the IV estimates, which correspond to the local average treatment effect (LATE) of being exposed to a larger share of leave-taking competitors, induced by their reform eligibility. The estimates in column 4 show that as the share of leave-taking competitors increases by 0.31 (1 SD in the sample), the post-child earnings of a focal father are on 27. These back-of-the-envelope calculations are based on the 7-digit occupation codes available in the 2010 data, since data on occupations are not available for our main analysis window (i.e. ...
Article
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In standard promotion tournaments, contestants are ranked based on their output or productivity. We argue that workers’ career progression may also depend on their relative rankings in dimensions a priori unrelated to their job performance, such as visibility or in-person presence. Such implicit tournaments may rationalize a variety of seemingly counterproductive practices in the workplace, including long working hours, low uptake of statutory leave, and presenteeism. We illustrate the significance of implicit tournaments using the case of paternity leave among new fathers, where we exogenously vary a focal worker’s ranking within a contest, not via his own leave status but that of his competitors, exploiting a policy reform. We show that the focal worker is put on a better earnings trajectory than otherwise when a larger share of his competitors take leave because of the reform. The focal worker’s own absolute leave, however, has no direct effect on his earnings path as long as his own and his competitors’ leave statuses are symmetric. With effective coordination, it should thus be possible for all fathers to utilize paternity leave without incurring unwarranted career costs. This has implications for statutory leave policies, flexible work arrangements, and gender equality.
... There exists a well-established body of literature that finds fathers' uptake of leave to result in their greater involvement in childcare and housework (Bünning, 2015;Gonalons-Pons, 2022;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011;Patnaik, 2019;Tamm, 2019;Wray, 2020). Another body of literature has found fathers' greater involvement in childcare and housework to lead to more gender egalitarian attitudes and behaviours in children (Cano & Hofmeister, 2023;Davis & Wills, 2010;Deutsch et al., 2001;Halpern & Perry-Jenkins, 2016;Perales et al., 2021;Platt & Polavieja, 2016). ...
... The extant literature on the aftermaths of fathers' uptake of leave has paid particular attention to whether and to what extent fathers taking leave could contribute to gender equality within the household. Quantitative studies have documented a positive causal relationship between fathers' uptake of (long) leave and a more gender-egalitarian division of unpaid labour (Bünning, 2015;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011;Patnaik, 2019;Tamm, 2019;Wray, 2020). These results are backed up by various qualitative studies which have similarly noted the transformative effects of fathers' leave on their development of caring and active co-parenting identities (Doucet, 2018;Ranson, 2015). ...
Article
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Do leave-taking fathers who 'undo' gender in their division of domestic labour and responsibilities also ‘undo’ gender in relation to their children’s gender socialization? This exploratory qualitative study seeks to understand how leave-taking fathers in South Korea (N = 17) experience and envision their children’s gender socialization by identifying three types of fathers. For ‘committed’ fathers, leave-taking is an extension of their genuine convictions and best efforts to raise children based on feminist ideals, but contradictory messages from non-parental influences such as preschools pose challenges. ‘Conflicted’ fathers undergo significant changes in their views about men and women’s roles through leave uptake but confess to still holding rigid views about children’s gender socialization. ‘Receptive’ fathers demonstrate more open and moderately flexible attitudes to children’s gender roles than the ‘conflicted’ fathers, although not as consciously, proactively, or consistently as the ‘committed’ fathers. The findings indicate that fathers’ uptake of leave leads to diverging, rather than uniform trajectories in fathers’ development of attitudes and behaviours toward children’s socialization. The findings point to the need to consider inconsistencies operating at multiple levels of the ‘gender trap,’ including between fathers’ attitudes toward adult and children’s gender roles, fathers’ behaviours and attitudes, and parental and non-parental influences.
... With respect to longer-term effects on fathers' involvement in family work, existing reform evaluation studies provide mixed results. A Norwegian study based on cross-sectional survey data suggested that the introduction of a one-month paternity leave period in 1993 led to a more gender-equal sharing of laundry tasks, but no other household chores (Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). A Swedish study investigated the effects of reserving one month of parental leave for fathers in 1995 on the division of temporary leave to care for sick children and found no effect up to when children were 8 years old (Ekberg et al., 2013). ...
... Single-country studies of leave policy reforms provide mixed evidence. Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011) found no significant effects of the introduction of the one-month paternity leave in Norway in 1993 on parents' beliefs regarding an appropriate gender division of labour measured about 15 years later. This may be due to norm-setting effects spilling over from the target population to the wider population. ...
Chapter
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Statutory parenting leave policies in high-income countries have been subject to numerous reforms, with a general trend towards increasing leave provision for fathers. Simultaneously, promoting gender equality by increasing maternal employment and fathers’ involvement in childcare has become a more important policy goal of parenting leave policies (Gornick & Meyers, 2003). In this chapter, we contribute to the literature by collating, summarizing, and discussing existing empirical findings on the relationship between statutory parenting leave policies – i.e., maternity, paternity, and general parental leave – and parental labour market outcomes, the gender division of family work, and gender norms. To this end, we conduct a literature review of studies published in international journals during the period 1990–2020. We substantively complement a recent review on family policy and female employment by Ferragina (2020) in several ways by focusing solely on parenting leave as one area of family policy and covering a broader range of parental practices and gender norms. Specifically, we focus on the labour market participation and careers of mothers and fathers and their involvement in family work. As many scholars have emphasized the legitimizing and norm-setting role of such family policies (e.g., Schober, 2014; Gangl & Ziefle, 2015), we also summarize the small number of studies investigating effects on beliefs and norms regarding the gender division of labour. We take an interdisciplinary approach and consider cross-country comparative as well as national case studies. We critically review the analytical extent to which previous studies suggested plausible causal chains of mechanisms for how parenting leave policies relate to our outcomes of interest
... There is also some evidence that paternity leave leads to an increase in fathers helping with childcare and homework (e.g. Bünning, 2015;González & Zoabi, 2021;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011), which could reduce the mental and physical burden for the mother. As explained in Section 2.3, a two-week paternal leave was introduced in 2021 in Switzerland. ...
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This paper investigates the mental health penalty for women after childbirth in Switzerland. Leveraging insurance data, we employ a staggered difference-in-difference research design. The findings reveal a substantial mental health penalty for women following the birth of their first child. Approximately four years after childbirth, there is a one percentage point (p.p.) increase in antidepressant prescriptions, representing a 50% increase compared to pre-birth levels. This increase rises to 1.7 p.p. (a 70% increase) six years postpartum. The mental health penalty is likely not only a direct consequence of giving birth but also a consequence of the changed life circumstances and time constraints that accompany it, as the penalty is rising over time and is higher for women who are employed before childbirth.
... La interacción entre las políticas sociales y la opinión pública es compleja: por un lado, los políticos tienen en cuenta las demandas sociales a la hora de llevar a cabo sus políticas; por otro, en ciertas ocasiones se apuesta por una política que implique un cambio en la opinión y los comportamientos de la población hacia una mayor igualdad de género. En la esfera de la conciliación, por ejemplo, el proyecto europeo "The Role of Men in Gender Equality" recoge en sus conclusiones(Scambor et al., 2014) que establecer una cuota exclusiva para que el padre cuide de su hijo o hija facilita que los hombres se impliquen más en los cuidados(Kotsadam y Finseraas, 2011) y se desarrolle una masculinidad más cuidadora(Langvasbråten y Teigen, 2006; Scambor, Wojnicka y Bergmann, 2013). Será interesante es-112 ⎥ Livia García-FaroLdi y José María García de dieGo Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales⎥ Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Nueva Época, Año lxix, núm. ...
Article
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Actualmente han ganado visibilidad nuevos discursos que cuestionan los roles de género tradicionales vinculados a la maternidad y a la paternidad. De igual manera, hay un debilitamiento del rol de proveedor económico del padre y una mayor demanda de una paternidad más involucrada y cuidadora para lograr una corresponsabilidad real de los cuidados entre hombres y mujeres. Este trabajo analiza cuáles son las imágenes predominantes de ser padre y ser madre en la sociedad española. Para ello se ha utilizado la Encuesta Social General Española (cis, 2018). Los datos ponen de relieve que la percepción social de los encuestados es que los roles de género tradicionales siguen vigentes en la sociedad: mientras el padre se vincula a un rol de proveedor económico, la madre tiene un perfil más diversificado, pero sigue siendo responsable en mayor medida que su pareja de las tareas más rutinarias. Esta percepción, sin embargo, no está implantada en igual medida en todas las categorías sociales. Los roles tradicionales son más mencionados por las personas menos religiosas, las mujeres y quieres tienen un nivel de estudios e ingresos más altos. Estos resultados sugieren algunas implicaciones políticas que se vinculan a su vez a la demanda social de una mayor corresponsabilidad.
... There are mixed results in terms of how father-exclusive benefits affect fertility across countries. Ones point to no change in continued fertility (Duvander et al., 2020;Hart et al., 2022) nor completed fertility in Norway (Cools et al., 2015;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011) and the existence of a delay in childbearing and lower additional births by couples with an intermediate wage gap in Spain (Farré & González, 2019;González & Zoabi, 2021). Contrary to this, there is some evidence that low income couples in Sweden experience a positive effect on continued fertility (Duvander et al., 2020). ...
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Using national birth records from Spain, we examine the effect of father-exclusive parental leave on fertility. To do so, we run a Bayesian structural time series analysis exploiting the 2-week leave introduction and extensions up to 8 weeks. This methodology allows us to construct a time counterfactual to track the policy effect over time. We find suggestive evidence that, overall, father-exclusive parental leave does not affect the fertility rate of women of childbearing age. But we identify a heterogeneous policy effect once we disentangle the effect by birth order. The birth count of first- and second-order births does not report a change over time with respect to any of the leave entitlements. In contrast, linked to the 4-week extension, higher-order births exhibit a positive effect consolidated over time. With the 4-week benefit implementation, third- and higher-order births increase, on average, by 0.8% and 1.1%. The analysis provides useful policy insights into how work-life reconciliation policies that call active fatherhood can promote fertility. JEL classification— J08, J13, D13, I12, H31
... As pairs of parents gradually embrace democratic values, it is essential to have ample time to understand how to break parental work appropriately for both parents (Carlson et al., 2016). Paternity leave can also be related to better parental ties and low-tension levels (Kotsadam and Finseraas, 2011). ...
Thesis
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Paternity leave is one of the topics discussed in society in this era. Paternity leave is also a benefit provided by the organisation and has been written into the law in other countries. However, Malaysia still has no law that states paternity leave, and not all organisations provide paternity leave to their employee. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory, Expectancy Theory and Herzberg's Two Factory Theory were adopted and incorporated in this study. A cross-sectional study is conducted whereby the data gathered is from the collection of questionnaires as the main instrument. The data was collected through an online survey. Participants of this study included 147 male individuals, 18 years old and above with working experience. The data collected was further analysed using SPSS software for descriptive statistics for each variable. The independent variable, namely: Paternity leave, had a significant effect on all the dependent variables, namely: Employee Productivity, Organisation Productivity and Employee Satisfaction. This study is crucial to guide other researchers in understanding better paternity leave in Malaysia. It is also beneficial for organisations, especially since management will start to provide paternity leave to their employees.
... As far as leave is concerned, as previously discussed, despite acknowledging that these tools may not always have a positive effect on the distribution of care tasks within the family and therefore on gender equality (Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011) the literature shows that they can be helpful to workersespecially for womenof the lower social classes, insofar as they protect the employment and income of working mothers., By allowing a reconciliation between work and care tasks, maternity leave and more generally, parental leave, favor the entry into the labor market of the most disadvantaged groups (of women)while potentially having distorting effects for those economically more advantaged women (Mandel, 2011). ...
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The article investigates in-work poverty (IWP) in Italy through the lens of family policies. Adopting a longitudinal perspective, the work scrutinizes whether and to what extent the configuration of family policy tools – family allowances, leave and ECEC (Early Childhood Care and Education) – has been effective in contrasting IWP in Italy. Furthermore, it probes whether the Italian family policy has recon!gured over time as a tool for countering IWP. The study shows that family policy can be useful both directly – by providing income support for the most disadvantaged families – and indirectly – by fostering the transition to a dual-earner family model. However, the analysis of the Italian case shows that such positive e"ects are only potential, and not automatic. In Italy, historically, family policy has been scarcely e"ective. Nevertheless, in the last few years a pattern of slow change has initiated, and its e"ectiveness as a device to tackle IWP appears to have increased.
... In 2021, only 68 of 185 countries offered a statutory right to parental leave, and only 1 in 10 potential parents live in countries that provide paid parental leave (ILO 2022b). Evidence suggests that parental leave can increase women's paid working hours (Akgunduz and Plantenga 2013), lower the intrahousehold gender wage gap (Andersen 2018), and promote sharing of unpaid care work among women and men (Wray 2022;Tamm 2019;Kotsadam and Finseraas 2011). It also reduces fathers' mortality rate (Månsdotter, Lindholm, and Winkvist 2007) and the divorce rate (Steingrimsdottir and Vardardottir 2014). ...
... The authors find that at age 12, children whose fathers were eligible for paternity leave exhibit more egalitarian attitudes towards gender roles, are more supportive of mothers and fathers being equally engaged in the labor market and in the home, and engage more in counterstereotypical day-to-day behaviors. Consistently, Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011) show that the introduction of father's quota in the Norwegian parental leave decreases couple's conflict over household division of labor and increases the likelihood of sharing domestic chores, although not affecting individual gender attitudes. In the same line, Unterhofer and Wrohlich (2017) provide evidence that a father's quota in Germany had indirect effects on non-treated individuals through social interaction and can thus meet the goal of changing attitudes towards gender roles in a society as a whole. ...
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Gender equality in the labor market remains a difficult challenge in Latin America and recent literature shows that child penalties play an important role in explaining these gaps. While policies to address gaps related to parenthood were introduced in recent decades, evidence of its effects is still scarce. This paper presents comparable evidence on the adoption of family leaves legislation in 15 Latin American countries and discusses its relationship with the evolution of the gender gaps in the labor market and the prevailing gender norms. We document that from 2000 to 2019 almost all countries increased the weeks covered by maternity, paternity, or parental leaves. Following a similar approach to that of Olivetti and Petrongolo (2017), we exploit the variations over time and control for country and year-fixed effects to study the relationship between the extension of family leaves and women’s outcomes. We find that these policies are successful in increasing female employment and reducing employment gaps in countries departing from a worse situation in terms of leave coverage or with more traditional perceptions of gender roles. On the other hand, for countries with more egalitarian gender perceptions, our results suggest that the extension of family leaves contributes to reduce the income gaps.
... Similarly, reform evaluation studies have shown that the introduction of leave reserved for fathers in Germany and in Quebec, Canada, increased involvement in childcare not just among fathers who took leave but among fathers in general (Patnaik 2019;Schober 2014;Wray 2020). Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011) did not find significant long-term differences in gender ideologies among parents who had their child just before compared with just after the introduction of parental leave reserved for fathers in Norway in 1993, which may also be attributable to broader norm-setting and cultural diffusion effects that were not limited to the policy's target group. These observational and quasi-experimental studies overall suggest that parental leave reforms changed gender norms and expectations around maternal employment and fathering behavior. ...
Article
In this study, we conceptualize and provide novel empirical evidence on norm-setting effects of family policies by investigating how priming with parental leave policy–related information may alter normative beliefs regarding the gender division of parental leave in Germany. We implemented a survey experiment in two waves of the representative German GESIS Panel in 2019 and 2020. Respondents received one of three short evidence-based information primers about (1) long-term income risks of maternal employment interruptions, (2) nonsignificant paternal wage penalties, or (3) increasing rates of paternal leave usage in Germany, or were allocated to the control group that received no further information before rating the division of parental leave in fictitious couples. We apply ordinary least squares regression models with lagged dependent variables to a sample of 5,362 vignette evaluations nested in 1,548 respondents. Remarkably, we find that the effects of all three priming conditions vary significantly depending on whether respondents are asked to judge situations for couples where women earn more or less than their partners. Our findings mostly point to stronger effects of priming with information on income risks compared with paternal leave usage trends and to more pronounced changes in normative beliefs among childless respondents. (This article has been published open access.)
... Given their close ties, gender attitudes likely shape perceptions of parental leave policies and parental leave-taking. Broadly defined, egalitarian gender attitudes may incorporate greater support for paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers and greater support for workers who take leave, as paid parental leave can promote greater gender equality by encouraging women to return to employment (Akgunduz and Plantenga 2013) and men to engage in more housework and childcare (Kotsadam and Finseraas 2011;Schober 2014). In contrast, given that traditional gender attitudes promote a separate spheres family model, they may be associated with less support for paid parental leave (Li et al. 2022). ...
Article
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This paper examines the relationship between gender ideology and attitudes toward parental leave. We use data from two original survey experiments with a total analytic sample of 3332 respondents. Using an experimental design where participants evaluate a new parent’s decision about taking parental leave in light of the employer’s leave policies, and answer attitudinal questions about leave and gender ideology, we assess the associations between gender ideology and (a) desired weeks of parental leave for mothers and fathers, as well as (b) perceptions of whether the new parent described in the experiment took too little or too much leave. We find that participants think fathers should receive 10.5 weeks of paid paternity leave, whereas mothers should receive 16 weeks of paid maternity leave. In general, those with egalitarian gender ideals support longer paternity leave and more equal periods of leave for mothers and fathers—and are more likely to think that men workers take too little leave. However, those who support mothers as financial providers are more likely to think that women workers take too much leave, demonstrating the complexities between dimensions of gender ideology, the gender of the parent taking leave, and views of parental leave.
... So zeigten beispielsweise Schober und Zoch (2019) für Doppelverdienerpaare, dass eine längere Elternzeit von Frauen zu einer stärkeren Traditionalisierung der Hausarbeitsteilung und der Aufteilung der Kinderbetreuung führte. Wenn Väter Elternzeit in Anspruch nahmen, hatte das eher eine Auswirkung im Sinne einer relativen Angleichung im Hinblick auf die Hausarbeit und die Kinderbetreuung, wie auch internationale Befunde belegen (Bünning, 2015;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). ...
... The recent extension of paternity leave in Spain, to match maternity leave, opens up hope for the future regarding a greater involvement by fathers with female partners in childcare tasks. Indeed, some data from Spain have begun to suggest evidence of this change , which has indeed been verified in Nordic countries, which were pioneers in establishing these kinds of measures (Haas & Hwang, 2008;Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). ...
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Abstract Objective: To compare the distribution of housework and childcare and satisfaction with work-life balance resources among lesbian and heterosexual parenting couples in Spain and Sweden, and their association with life satisfaction. Background: Lesbian couples have generally reported higher levels of co-responsibility than their heterosexual counterparts in terms of housework and childcare. However, it has yet to be determined whether these differences are maintained in countries with different public equality and family support policies. Method: Interviews were held with 154 mothers who lived with their romantic partner and had children under 13 years of age: 89 from Spain (65 heterosexuals and 24 lesbians) and 65 from Sweden (27 heterosexuals and 38 lesbians). Interviews were held with all participants, focusing on the distribution in the couple of housework and childcare, problems related to work-life balance, satisfaction with work-life balance resources and life satisfaction. Results: In Spain, lesbian couples had a significantly more equal distribution of tasks than their heterosexual counterparts. No differences were observed among Swedish mothers. Swedish mothers expressed greater satisfaction with the distribution of housework and childcare and reported fewer problems with work-life balance and a greater degree of life satisfaction than their Spanish counterparts. Problems related to work-life balance and satisfaction with household task distribution and personal time availability were found to predict life satisfaction. Conclusion: Lesbian couples are a role model for equality in patriarchal societies. Societies that promote equality and work-life balance policies encourage co-responsibility among couples and foster psychological well-being. Key words: lesbian couples, heterosexual couples, housework, childcare, life satisfaction
... Analysing survey data from 356 fathers working in large private companies, Haas and Hwang (2008) found that the amount of parental leave days taken had positive effects on fathers' participation in childcare and their contact with children. In Norway, Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011) found that men whose last child was born in the year after Norway's father's quota was introduced reported lower levels of conflict over household tasks than men whose child was born in earlier years. Germany introduced two daddy months in 2007 and both Reimer et al. (2015) and Bünning (2015) found a large effect of paid leave taken alone by the father on the time they used for childcare. ...
... This distinguishes fathers' leave from other social policies that are compatible with traditional gender roles, such as parental leave that can be shared between parents as they see fit, which is in practice disproportionately taken by women. By offering a benefit that can be accessed only through the choice of a nontraditional caring role by 1 A study of the 1993 Norwegian "daddy quota" (Kotsadam and Finseraas 2011) was not able to fully identify the attitudinal effect (Rege and Solli 2013). men, fathers' leave directly challenges mothers and fathers to conceive of their social roles in less stereotypical ways. ...
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Research shows that sexist attitudes are deeply ingrained, with adverse consequences in the socioeconomic and political sphere. We argue that parental leave for fathers—a policy reform that disrupts traditional gender roles and promotes less stereotypical ones—has the power to decrease attitudinal gender bias. Contrasting the attitudes of new parents who were (and were not) directly affected by a real-world policy reform that tripled the amount of fathers’ leave, we provide causal evidence that the reform increased gender-egalitarian views in the socioeconomic and political domains among mothers and fathers, and raised support for pro-female policies that potentially displace men among mothers. In contrast, informational, indirect exposure to the reform among the general public produced no attitudinal change. These results show that direct exposure to progressive social policy can weaken sexist attitudes, providing governments with a practical and effective tool to reduce harmful biases.
... The change in the number of days of leave used by fathers is especially relevant because evidence shows that taking more extended leave tends to foster the subsequent involvement of fathers in childcare (Arnalds et al., 2013(Arnalds et al., , 2022Duvander & Jans, 2008;Fern andez-Cornejo et al., 2016, 2018Kotsadam & Finseraas, 2011). ...
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Objective The article evaluates the 2007 introduction of nontransferable and fully paid paternity leave in Spain. Background Previous research has focused on paternity leave reforms, especially in the Nordic and continental countries. This article studies characteristics of the parental leave system design, including transferability, payment, and purpose of different types of leave for mothers and fathers in a Mediterranean country. Method We use a quasi‐experimental approach based on a sample of heterosexual dual‐earner couples with children born before and after the paternity leave introduction. We estimate differences in differences regression models. Results The 2007 reform caused a significant increase in fathers' number of days of parental leave. Most fathers used the whole nontransferable and fully paid paternity leave, but they hardly used transferable or unpaid leave. Mothers used all of these, especially paid leave. Conclusion The number of nontransferable fully paid days of parental leave provided by law approximates the actual number of days most fathers used. Implications The policy design matters. A design of equal, nontransferable, and fully paid leave for each parent is necessary for equal use by fathers and mothers—and thus for gender equality in families and work.
... Unlike maternal and paternal leave schemes that target one parent, parental leave is designed to be used by mothers and fathers to share care responsibilities. Evidence shows that fathers' leave take-up increases their involvement in childcare and housework, and these effects persist after several years (Tamm, 2019;Almqvist and Duvander, 2014;Schober, 2014;Kotsadam and Finseraas, 2011). Moreover, father involvement in childcare has positive effects on a child's cognitive and non-cognitive development (Cano et al., 2019;Lamb, 2010;Cabrera et al., 2007;Amato and Rivera, 1999), on the mental well-being of both mother and child (Twamley et al., 2013), and on gender equity (Evertsson et al., 2018;Coltrane, 1996). ...
... For example, in Norway, after the introduction of a four-week quota of parental leave for new fathers, families were 50 percent more likely to report that they equally shared responsibilities for doing the laundry, and 11 percent less likely to report having conflicts about the division of household work. 36 In contrast, when women alone take long periods of leave, gender equality in household work declines. 37 Moreover, studies have found that when fathers take leave alone-that is, not concurrently with the mother-they have an even greater opportunity to bond with their child and develop a pattern of greater participation in caregiving. ...
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Well into the twenty-first century, achieving gender equality in the economy remains unfinished business. Worldwide, women’s employment, income, and leadership opportunities lag men’s. Building and using a one-of-a-kind database that covers 193 countries, this book systematically analyzes how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in adopting evidence-based solutions to close the gaps. Spanning topics including girls’ education, employment discrimination of all kinds, sexual harassment, and caregiving needs across the life course, the authors bring the findings to life through global maps, stories of laws’ impact in courts and beyond, and case studies of making change. A powerful call to action, Equality within Our Lifetimes reveals how gender equality is both feasible and urgently needed to address some of the greatest challenges of our generation.
... Although nearly 90% of fathers take some time off after the birth of a child (Department of Labor, 2016), that leave is generally quite short (Huerta et al., 2014). Research on the effects of leave on fathers indicates that access to paternity leave increases the number of fathers who take it up (Bartel et al., 2018;Patnaik, 2019) and increases men's involvement in household work (Kotsadam and Finseraas, 2011;Patnaik, 2019) and engagement in childcare duties (Tanaka & Waldfogel, 2007). Other work has found associations between men's leave taking and increased engagement in parenting (Petts and Knoester, 2018;Pragg & Knoester, 2017;Seward et al., 2002) and increased coparenting . ...
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Purpose Family violence imposes tremendous costs on victims and society. Rarely are policies focused on the primary prevention of family violence. Given the prevalence of family violence—including child maltreatment and intimate partner violence (IPV)—during the perinatal period, policies targeting this vulnerable time period may be successful in primary prevention. Paid family leave (PFL) programs provide income-replacement during particularly stressful family events, such as the birth of a child.Method In this commentary, we describe the conceptual links between PFL, child maltreatment, and IPV, suggesting that PFL may be a promising strategy for the primary prevention of child maltreatment and IPV.ResultsThere is emerging evidence that policies targeting the early years of life may reduce child maltreatment and IPV.Conclusion Addressing the concrete and economic challenges faced by caregivers is one promising strategy for the prevention of family violence.
... Se observa que el uso de permisos más largos por parte de los padres favorece su mayor implicación en el cuidado posteriormente (Almqvist y Duvander, 2014;Arnalds et al., 2013;Duvander y Jans, 2008;Fernández-Cornejo et al., 2016, 2018Kotsadam y Finseraas, 2011) y esta mayor implicación reduce la penalización por maternidad (Johansson, 2010;Fernández-Cornejo et al., 2018). Este efecto duradero es debido a que el periodo inicial de cuidado afecta al vínculo entre padres e hijos y a su participación en el cuidado (Almqvist y Duvander, 2014;Fernandez-Cornejo et al., 2016;Haas y Rostgaard, 2011). ...
Article
Paid family and medical leave (PFML) helps parents balance the competing obligations of work, personal illness, and family. PFML is needed when adding a new member of the family or when a family member or individual becomes acutely or chronically ill. The United States lacks universally available PFML, despite the benefits for child and family health and well-being. Universally available PFML is a key component of improving the health of children and families and is critically needed in the United States.
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We estimate the impact of children on the gender earnings gap in Australia using an event study approach. We show that the arrival of children has a large and persistent impact on the gender earnings gap, reducing female annual earnings by 53 per cent, on average, in the first 5 years of parenthood. We attribute the gap in earnings to lower participation rates and reduced working hours among mothers, including a shift to part‐time work. Although the decline in earnings for women is similar regardless of their breadwinner status prior to children, women with greater access to workplace flexibility are more likely to remain employed after having children.
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Evidence suggests that separate spheres gender norms discourage girls from maths. We therefore examine a policy that counteracts such norms among parents, and investigate whether it increases girls' participation in maths‐intensive studies. Specifically, we examine a parental leave reform that reserved one month of leave for fathers, and estimate its effect on children's study choices. We find that the reform increases the probability of doing a maths‐intensive programme in upper secondary education among girls whose father was otherwise reluctant to take leave. There is no effect on boys. We also conduct heterogeneity analyses to investigate whether the results can be explained by human capital transmission or the gender norms mechanism. The results of our analyses suggest that the gender norms mechanism is at play.
Book
Research into the politics of family policy has expanded considerably in recent years. However, the family policy agenda of the Mainstream Right – i.e., Christian democratic and conservative parties – has largely been overlooked. The current book provides a thorough, comparative, and longitudinal analysis of the Mainstream Right’s family policy agendas in 4 Western European countries (i.e., Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the UK). Anchored in a new theoretical framework that combines the insights of a variety of sociological and political science approaches, this study offers an understanding of the changes in the Mainstream Right’s family policy preferences and their drivers over time and across countries. How have family policy agendas been configured in the post-Fordist age? Have they re-adapted over time - going beyond familialism - or have they remained unchanged? What drivers have affected the Mainstream Right’s family policy agendas in the post-industrial era? Furthermore, how can the various configurations of these drivers explain cross-country similarities and differences? Under what conditions have Mainstream Right parties gone beyond a purely familistic agenda?
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Important gender differences still persist in many labor market outcomes. This paper argues that the design of parental leave policies can play an important role in shaping these differences. A summary of the literature reveals that extended maternity leave mandates increase female labor force participation at the cost of lower wages, less presence of women in high-profile occupations and a more traditional division of tasks within the family. Periods of leave exclusively reserved for fathers are proposed as a policy instrument to increase men's participation in family tasks and facilitate women's progress in the professional career. The paper concludes with a revision of these policies and their implications for gender equality.
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Although existing studies have suggested that men's leave‐taking positively affects children's development and their involvement in childcare and household chores in the long run, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. To shed light on this ambiguity, this study develops a dynamic collective household model and analyses household decisions on parental leave‐sharing between spouses, resource allocation, home production, and labour supply. We demonstrate that gender equality in bargaining positions within families before leave‐taking is crucial in explaining the positive impacts of men's leave‐taking. Specifically, if women's intrahousehold bargaining power before taking parental leave is sufficiently low, their husbands are unlikely to take leave, and women's positions may deteriorate after leave. Consequently, households may allocate fewer resources to children, and men may not actively participate in childcare and household chores. Our model suggests that implementing parental leave policies for both genders may not be sufficient; simultaneous measures to increase women's bargaining power are necessary to encourage men to take parental leave and maximize the policies' benefits.
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Currently, parental leave policy is one of the key instruments of social policy in the family sphere in many European countries. Despite the common territorial context, parental leave design may vary greatly in different European countries. In this respect, the influence of differentiative parameters of the parental leave system on the social policy results in European countries is still overlooked. Our study aims to compare parental leave policies in European countries using cluster analysis and reveal the differentiation of the results of policies related to parental leave policy in the clusters of countries. We put forward the following research questions: (1) Are groups of European countries shaped according to the characteristics of parental leave policy similar to European geographical regions? Which cluster has the largest proportion of CEE countries? (2) How different are the results of policies associated with parental leave policy in these groups of countries? As an information source, we used the International Review of Leave Policies and Research 2020, which presents data on parental leave policy in 32 European countries. As indicators for cluster analysis, we used the number of maternity, paternity, and parental leave flexibility elements. The research identified three groups of European countries varying in the number of flexibility elements in the structure of each type of leave. We concluded that leave policies in these countries are not conditioned by their geographical location but may result from their social policies. We also observed that a parental leave policy may contribute to reducing gender inequality in the country. The scientific significance of the research lies in revealing similarities and differences between parental leave policies in the context of a wide circle of European countries and in expanding existing knowledge of the public values theory in public administration.
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Although affluent democracies experienced family policy expansion, there are remarkable country differences. Whilst some countries focus on policies supporting the male breadwinner model such as family allowances, others prioritise gender equality supporting public childcare. We explain this variation by arguing for governments as key actors in parliamentary democracies and test two sets of explanations: party ideology and women's representation. Our error correction models covering 16 affluent parliamentary democracies between 1991 and 2015 reveal that non‐left rather than left parties matter for family policy. Secular centre and Christian‐Democratic parties promote father‐specific leave, whilst secular right parties reduce spending on childcare and family allowances as well as father‐specific leave. The share of female ministers is associated with higher childcare expenses, and instead of women's share, the gender of the family affairs minister affects father‐specific leave expansions.
Book
In Hungary, women are much less likely than men to be in paid work. Despite recent policy reforms and employment increases for both men and women since the global financial crisis, the gender employment gap has widened over the past years. It is now at its highest point since the mid-1990s. A major reason for the persistent employment gap in Hungary is that most mothers with very young children take an extended period out of paid work following childbirth - often until the child is two or three years of age. Traditional family attitudes towards gender roles and caring for very young children play a role. In addition, access to and use of childcare services for very young children remains limited despite some improvements, and flexible working arrangements are not widespread. For Hungary, closing the gender employment gap responds to both gender equality and labour market issues. This report analyses recent reforms and explores potential policy actions in the areas of early childhood education and care, parental leave and flexible working arrangements, which could provide women - and especially mothers of very young children - with better access to paid work.
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A number of studies have documented a positive (causal) relationship between fathers’ uptake of parental leave and a more equitable division of unpaid labour in Western contexts, primarily where men contribute to a fair share of unpaid work and fathers’ uptake of leave is common. South Korea offers an apt and contrasting setting to explore this relationship, with its highly gendered division of unpaid labour and low use of fathers’ leave, despite recent increases. This study finds that fathers who have taken (long) leave contribute more to housework as well as both developmental and routine childcare than fathers with neither leave plan nor experience. For housework and developmental childcare, this difference is mostly explained by already involved fathers self-selecting into leave. For routine childcare, there is limited evidence to suggest that very long leave of one year or longer could potentially make fathers more involved. In short, the gender equalising impact of fathers’ uptake of parental leave in Korea appears to be restricted mainly to long leave and routine childcare, if there exists any significant effect at all. Overall, this paper suggests that the gender equalising effect of fathers’ leave may vary depending on the stage of the gender revolution.
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The aim of this article is to compare the legal development of the work-life balance directive in the European Union (EU) and Indonesia. The objective of the Work-Life Balance Directive is to enhance the existing EU legal framework for family-related leave and flexible work arrangements. The directive includes the introduction of paternity leave (the equivalent second parent/parent will be able to take at least 10 working days of maternity leave around the birth of the child, compensated at least at the rate of sick pay); the strengthening of the right to leave for birth for 4 months and the right to request flexible leave (e.g., part-time or gradually); and the establishment of nursing leave (5 days/year) for workers caring for permanency-impaired relatives. This policy can serve as a model for Indonesia in terms of defending worker rights and promoting a healthy work-life balance. Nonetheless, the Indonesian legal framework governing the work-life balance remains obscure. Therefore, the Indonesian legal system must modify existing regulations and/or pass new laws to ensure the quality of working time and life are balance which gradually could impact to the families economic stability.
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This article provides an overview of the issues needed in making causal inferences, when the generated data come from processes that are not controlled by the researcher. This overview serves as an introduction to the issues that have been discussed in detail by other researchers. This article emphasizes that the possible causes of these issues may include events, institutions, and policies. It also tries to determine if the science of comparative politics exists, by identifying the problem, the kinds of data, and the potential biases. Several historical studies are also provided.
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In this article, the authors explore how data on the use of time might be used to investigate the multilevel connections between family-related policies and fathers' child care time in a cross-national context. The authors present a case study analysis of “fathering strategies” in which empirical findings from time-use data are compared with detailed policy information from Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These analyses show that time-use data can not only shed light on the effects of specific policies in different national contexts but also point to the need to consider the complexity of multiple policies and their adoption in specific national contexts across time. The authors describe the development of a cross-national, cross-time database that combines time-use data with relevant social and family policy information, with the aim of providing a multilevel research tool to those interested in exploring further the relationships between policy and family work.
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This article examines the role of institutionalized family policy in structuring attitudes towards female labour force participation in 13 industrialized countries. Two different perspectives on explaining the role of family policy institutions are distinguished. According to the first perspective, gender-role attitudes will differ cross-nationally according to the capacity of family policy institutions to reconcile work in the home with work in the paid labour force. According to the second perspective, institutions such as family policies can give rise to a certain collection of norms regarding the ‘proper’ role of women in society. Cross-national variation in family policies will, according to this perspective, have important implications for gender-role attitudes primarily because it will affect what is seen as normatively appropriate behaviour, rather then affecting the returns expected from alternative choices. The empirical analysis, using multilevel regression techniques on data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), indicates that variations in family policy models can contribute significantly to our understanding of cross-national variations in gender-role attitudes. It is also shown that the way gender-role attitudes are measured and conceptualized can have important implications for how cross-national differences in these attitudes are explained.
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In Sweden, government-mandated paid parental leave has been available to both mothers and fathers since 1974. By 2006, each parent had two non-transferable leave months and nine additional months to share. From the beginning, parental leave was presented as a policy designed to promote gender equality, with women and men having equal opportunities and responsibilities to contribute economically to the family and care for children. Sweden thus provides a unique setting to explore whether social policy can be an important instrument for changing the gender contract. Analysing survey data from 356 fathers working in large private companies, we found that the amount of parental leave days taken had positive effects on several aspects of fathers’ participation in childcare and on their satisfaction with contact with children, controlling for other factors contributing to fathers’ participation in childcare. Our findings suggest that the full potential of Sweden's parental leave policy for degendering the division of labour for childcare will not likely be met until fathers are strongly encouraged by social policy to take a more equal portion of parental leave.
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In this article, we describe the social and economic changes that have contributed to contemporary problems of work–family conflict, gender inequality, and risks to children's healthy development. We draw on feminist welfare state scholarship to out-line an institutional arrangement that would support an earner–carer society—a social arrangement in which women and men engage symmetrically in paid work and unpaid caregiving and where young children have ample time with their parents. We present a blueprint for work–family reconciliation policies in three areas—paid family-leave provisions, working-time regulations, and early childhood education and care—and we identify key policy design principles. We describe and assess these work–family reconciliation policies as they operate in six European countries widely considered to be policy exemplars: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and France. We close with an analysis of potential objections to these policies.
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Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics (HC&UT) is about notions of causality appropriate to the sciences, mostly generic causal claims (causal laws) and especially notions that connect causality with probability. 1 Most of the work for the book is associated with the project ‘Causality: Metaphysics and Methods’. This project argued that metaphysics – our account of what causal laws are or what general causal claims say – should march hand-in-hand with our ways of establishing them. It should be apparent, given the kind of thing we think causality is, why our methods are good for finding it. If our metaphysics does not mesh with and underwrite the methods, we are willing to trust, we should be wary of both. Many philosophers nowadays look for a single informative feature that characterizes causal laws. HC&UT argues instead for causal pluralism, for a large variety of kinds of causal laws as well as purposes for which we call scientific claims causal. Correlatively different methods for testing causal claims are suited to different kinds of causal laws. No one analysis is privileged and no methods are universally applicable. Much of the argument for pluralism is provided by authors of different accounts of causality, who provide intuitively plausible counter-examples to each other. Still, most of these accounts seem adequate for the kinds of examples the authors focus on. From the point of view of HC&UT, these examples involve different kinds of causal laws or set causality to different jobs, and the concomitant characterizing feature marks out this one kind of causal law. Importantly for the argument, often we can specify what characteristics a system of laws should have in order for an account/method pair to be applicable. An example is James Woodward’s level invariance, which I see as a …
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Using survey data from Norway and Sweden, we assess people’s attitudes towards gender equality. Previous studies argue that these attitudes are more egalitarian in Sweden than in Norway. Similar to previous research, we find that Swedes are more positive towards gender equality in general. However, we find no differences regarding views on egalitarian sharing of household responsibilities, and Norwegians are actually more supportive of government intervention to increase gender equality. This suggests that the lower support for gender equality in Norway is less robust than previously thought and that there is a larger scope for advancing the gender revolution in Norway via government policies than in Sweden.
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This chapter addresses the question: what is the likelihood of changing gender relations with the help of welfare policies such as parental leave? The chapter is concerned with the politicising of fatherhood, and compares the current entitlements of fathers for taking parental leave in five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark). It then uses a review of Nordic studies to examine the socioeconomic and cultural conditions that are affecting the take-up of leave possibilities. It also considers negotiations of gender relations in the daily life of families and workplaces.
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The article examines the goals and ideologies of Swedish arrangements for parental leave and public child care for working parents. Two important goals are gender equality in work, and gender equality in family life and child welfare. It is argued that gender equality has been advanced to some extent as women have been able to integrate paid work into their lives. The choice of taking parental leave is, however, more conditional for men, and it is taken for granted that women take on the lion's share. It is concluded that the reform is more of a farsighted welfare policy for children than a policy for promoting gender equality.
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'Ferrarini ambitiously unpacks the origins and operation of family policies in 18 welfare democracies over the last quarter of the 20th century. He does so to discover not only how policies evolved by how they impact individuals in these democracies, especially with respect to fertility, labor force participation, and gender role attitudes.... Highly recommended.'
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This paper presents a policy analysis of fathers' use of paternity leave, parental leave and flexible work practices across several industrialised countries. From the late 1990s there has been a rapid expansion of leave and flexible working provision targeted at fathers, especially in the Nordic countries. New evidence on predictors and patterns of fathers' leave taking are reviewed. Findings suggest that paternal leave taking has the potential to boost fathers' practical and emotional investment in infant care.
Article
By situating men within the country and time period in which they live, social scientists are better able to understand men's housework and child care behaviors. The author proposes that national context, conceptualized here as women's employment practices and policies, influences men's unpaid work behaviors by shaping the benefits of specialization, the terms of bargaining, and the ease of adhering to gender ideologies and norms. Using 44 time-use surveys from 20 countries (spanning 1965 to 2003) combined with original national-level data, the author utilizes multilevel models to test hypotheses regarding the relationship between national context and men's unpaid work behaviors. She finds that men's unpaid work time increases with national levels of women's employment. Furthermore, the effect of children on men's unpaid work time depends on women's national employment hours, the length of available parental leave, and men's eligibility to take parental leave, which indicates that particular public policies affect men in specific household situations. The analyses document the importance of national context for the unpaid work behaviors of all men, especially fathers, and shift the research focus from the attributes of individual men to the structures that hinder and facilitate men's unpaid work.
Article
While most previous studies focus on the effects of individuals' and couples' characteristics on the division of housework, this study argues that macro-level factors are equally important in the dynamics of housework distribution between spouses. Data from the 1994 International Social Survey Programme is used to examine whether macro-level gender inequality limits the effect of individual-level variables (relative resources, time availability, and gender ideology) on the division of housework in 22 industrialized countries. The results show that the equalizing effects of time availability and gender ideology are stronger for women in more egalitarian countries; women in less egalitarian countries benefit less from their individual-level assets. Additional analysis shows that other macro-level factors (economic development, female labor-force participation, gender norms, and welfare regimes) may also influence the division of housework. The results suggest that changes in individual-level factors may not be enough to achieve an equal division of housework without the reduction of macro-level gender inequality.
Article
This paper analyses the relationship between country-level gender empowerment and individual-level divisions of housework. Pairing the 2004 United Nations gender empowerment measure (GEM) with individual-level (n=18,560) data from the 2004 European Social Survey, the author compares the relationship between a country’s GEM score, both as an index and as disaggregated measures, and respondents’ housework hours and housework proportions. The GEM index has a positive and linear relationship with men’s housework hours and a positive and non-linear relationship with men and women’s housework proportions and with women’s housework hours. For the disaggregated GEM measures, women’s representation in parliament is positively associated with men’s housework hours and proportions and women’s housework hours. Women’s labor market status, including the percent of women in professional positions and female–male wage ratios, is negatively associated with women’s housework hours and proportions. Finally, the cross-level interactions demonstrate theoretically important relationships to the housework literature.
Article
In the Nordic countries, gender equality is an explicit policy goal. For example, Norway and Sweden both offer paid parental leave for approximately one year following childbirth with earnings-related benefits and with certain periods reserved exclusively for the father. In this study, we examine the relationship between fathers’ and mothers’ use of parental leave and continued childbearing among couples in Norway and Sweden. The two countries offer largely similar family policies, but differ concerning family policy context. While Sweden has a consistent policy concerning gender relations, Norway has more ambiguous family policies giving incentives both to gender equality and childrearing at home. Our study is based on event-history analyses of Nordic register data and shows that fathers’ parental leave use is positively associated with continued childbearing in both Norway and Sweden, for both one- and two-child couples. The association is stronger in Norway. For two-child families, a long period of leave for the mother is positively associated with a third birth. It seems as if the two-child family is highly compatible with the combination of work and family life, but that in families who choose to have more children, the mother often seems to have a weaker work orientation.
Article
Comparative research has provided valuable insights into stratification processes; however, the focus has been on the labour market or economic inequalities. This study examines stratification in the home by looking at the division of household labour. Using data from the 1994 International Social Survey Program (ISSP), I investigate the division of household labour in 10 countries (Australia, Austria, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, United States; n = 4799). Analyses indicate that micro-level processes such as time availability, relative resources and gender ideology are important determinants of division of housework. Grouping the countries into liberal, conservative and social-democratic welfare state regimes, however, suggests macro-level differences in the division of labour across regimes that cannot be explained by differences in levels of individual characteristics. Equal sharing of housework by both partners is rare in conservative countries, regardless of their relative resources, time availability and gender ideology, suggesting that the division of labour at home is not only negotiated by two partners, but also shaped by contextual factors.
Article
By focusing on how national context and individual factors affect spouses’ absolute and relative contributions, social scientists are better able to understand couples’ organising and sharing of housework. Previous studies have suggested a linkage between female empowerment and the division of housework; however, documented effects have proven inconsistent. The authors propose that a less pronounced cross-national pattern for relative efforts reflects the fact that national context affect wives’ and husbands’ total involvement in the same direction. A reinterpretation of the ‘discount’ hypothesis is also suggested, relating interaction effects for relative efforts to non-interaction for spouses’ total contributions. Moreover, extending the causal model to include economic development as a macro-level explanatory variable permits a nuanced account of how different aspects of national context affect wives’ and husbands’ housework decisions. Within this extended framework the initially weak female empowerment - relative division linkage appears stronger. Based on a multilevel analysis of recently released data from 34 countries in the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), this article, on a wider basis than hitherto possible, jointly analyses spouses’ absolute and relative contributions, and investigates the interplay between macro-level forces and individual-level factors in influencing couples’ domestic labour.
Article
European states vary in eldercare policies and in gendered norms of family care, and this study uses these variations to gain insight into the importance of macro-level factors for the work-care relationship. Using advanced panel data methods on European Community Household Panel (ECHP) data for 1994-2001, this study finds women's employment to be negatively associated with informal caregiving to the elderly across the European Union. For the countries included in the study, the effects of informal caregiving seem to be more negative in Southern Europe, less negative in Nordic countries, and in between these extremes in Central Europe. This study explains that since eldercare is a choice in countries with more formal care and less pronounced gendered care norms, the weaker impact of eldercare on women's employment in these countries has to do with the lesser degree of coercion in the caring decision.
Article
In 1998 a new cash benefit for parents with young children was introduced in Norway. Its purpose was to provide a cash payment to parents who either preferred to care for their children at home or to compensate those who were not offered external childcare provision. It has been argued that the new policy encouraged women to stay at home with their children, possibly reducing labour supply. The policy was consequently considered gender-biased, creating reduced incentives for women to participate in the labour market and therefore encouraging a more traditional division of labour of husbands and wives. Given this background of the policy, we undertake an analysis in two parts. We ask first the question "who takes the cash benefit?" Second, by applying simple matching techniques, we ask the question "Do couples taking the benefit behave differently in terms of their fertility timing?" Using information from Norwegian registers we find that more traditional households (in a broad sense) are more likely to take the cash benefit. Those taking the benefit accelerate childbearing significantly, though the reasons why they do so varies by socio-economic groups.
Article
We analyze the effects of social policy regarding women’s employment and work-family conflict on the division of household labor in 33 countries. We classify policies according to Chang’s (2000) equality of access (affirmative action and absence of discriminatory policy) and substantive benefits (parental leave and childcare services). Results show that countries without prohibitions against certain types of employment for women, and those with longer parental leave policies, exhibit a more egalitarian gender division of housework. Further, women’s fulltime employment and higher income have stronger effects on the gender division of housework in countries with greater equality of access policies. However, longer parental leave policy is associated with weaker effects of women’s full-time employment. The findings suggest that social policies affect not only the overall gender division of housework, but also the dynamics of micro-level negotiations. Such policies may contribute to the context in which gender roles in the labor market and in the family are defined.
Article
Hunting Causes and Using Them argues that causation is not one thing, as commonly assumed, but many. There is a huge variety of causal relations, each with different characterizing features, different methods for discovery and different uses to which it can be put. In this collection of new and previously published essays, Nancy Cartwright provides a critical survey of philosophical and economic literature on causality, with a special focus on the currently fashionable Bayes-nets and invariance methods - and it exposes a huge gap in that literature. Almost every account treats either exclusively how to hunt causes or how to use them. But where is the bridge between? It's no good knowing how to warrant a causal claim if we don't know what we can do with that claim once we have it. This book will interest philosophers, economists and social scientists.
Article
In June 1996, the EU directive on parental leave came into force. A major consideration in the introduction of this directive was its advantages for the reconciliation of work and family life. However, there is little systematic knowledge about the practical significance of parental leave arrangements in the European Union for equal opportunities policy. Given this situation, the main focus of this article is on empirical issues such as the number of (male and female) leavetakers and the length of the leave. In order to present comparative data, a user rate is calculated for eight European countries. It appears that the majority of leavetakers are women; even in Nordic countries there are big differences between the user rates of men and women. As a result, the importance of the actual parental leave arrangements for equal opportunities seems rather dubious.
Article
National context may influence sex segregation of household tasks through both pragmatic decision making and the normative context in which decision making is embedded. This study utilizes 36 time use surveys from 19 countries (spanning 1965-2003) combined with original national-level data in multilevel models to examine household task segregation. Analyses reveal that men do less and women do more time-inflexible housework in nations where work hours and parental leave are long. Women do less of this work where there is more public child care and men are eligible to take parental leave. National context affects the character of gender inequality in the home through individual- and national-level pathways.
Article
This paper addresses the issue of why comparative research on welfare state attitudes has failed to establish a link between welfare regimes and popular support for redistribution. Several limitations in the existing literature regarding the dependent variable, the operationalisation of welfare regimes, how the relationship between regimes and attitudes is identified, and the methods used are proposed as reasons why no link between regimes and attitudes has been found. An alternative approach is developed in which welfare regimes are operationalised using a range of theoretically defining characteristics, e.g. total public social spending, benefit generosity, and the weight of social services relative to total public social expenditure. Using data on 13 Western European countries from the first two waves of the European Social Survey, the empirical analysis provides mixed support for the hypothesized relationship between welfare regimes and support for redistribution. Several suggestions for future research are also discussed.
Article
Many countries are trying to incentivize fathers to increase their share in parental leave and in household work to improve female labor market opportunities. Our unique data set stems from a natural experiment in Sweden. The data comprises all children born before (control group) and after the reform (treatment group) in cohorts of up to 27,000 newborns, mothers and fathers. We find strong short term effects of incentives on male parental leave. However, we find no learning-by doing, or specialization, effects: fathers in the treatment group do not have larger shares in the leave taken for care of sick children, which is our measure for household work.
Article
Historically, there is clear evidence of an inverse relationship between female labour supply and fertility. However, the relationship across countries is now positive. Countries like Germany and Italy, with the lowest fertility, also have the lowest female participation rates. This paper analyses the extent to which this can be explained by public policy, in particular taxation and the system of child support. The results suggest that countries which have individual rather than joint taxation, and which support families through child care facilities rather than child payments, are likely to have both higher female labour supply and higher fertility. Copyright The editors of the "Scandinavian Journal of Economics", 2004 .
Article
We link population register data to information on regional child care characteristics in order to estimate the influence of the latter on second and third birth intensities of Swedish couples in 1997-98. Our analysis allows us to distinguish interactions and specific effects of different dimensions of the local day-care infrastructure, namely the provision rate, the child-to-staff-ratio, and the costs of care to parents. However, our results reveal no clear effects of these child care characteristics on Swedish couples’ continued childbearing. We interpret this absence of effects as a reflection of the generally very appropriate level of child care in Sweden, which is complemented by further supportive family policies. In such a context, moderate regional variations in the characteristics of day care may have no decisive impact on parents’ propensity to have another child.
Nordic men on parental leave: can the welfare state change gender relations Politicizing parenthood in Scandinavia: gender relations in welfare states. The Policy Press
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Parental Leave – A Policy Evaluation of the Swedish ''Daddy-Month'' Reform, IZA Discussion Paper No Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
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Policy Feedbacks and the Political Mobilization of
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Omsorgspermison med “kjærlig tvang”. En kartlegging av fedrekvoten [Parental leave with “caring force”. A survey of the daddy quota
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