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Does Paternity Leave Promote Gender Equality within Households?

Author

Listed:
  • Libertad González
  • Hosny Zoabi
Abstract
We provide a theory of paternity leave and a comprehensive empirical analysis covering a range of outcomes including take up of paternity leave, employment, time use, fertility, and divorce. Our theory predicts that paternity leave has heterogeneous effects for low, intermediate, and high wage gap couples, such that a quota for fathers can break traditional specialization agreements in couples with an intermediate gender gap in wages between the spouses. Using Spanish data and a regression discontinuity design, we first identify the three groups empirically using the model’s predictions regarding the effect of paternity leave on fathers’ leave length. Then we test our model’s predictions on a range of outcomes. We don’t find systematic effects of paternity leave on low or high wage gap couples, while we document that, among intermediate gap couples, the two-week paternity leave introduced in Spain in 2007 led to a 3 percentage-point drop in the fraction having another child, a 4 percentage-point increase in the divorce rate, a persistent increase in fathers’ housework and childcare time of more than an hour per day each, and an increase of 8 percentage points in maternal employment two years after childbirth. Our theory and empirical analysis strongly suggest that small or zero aggregate effects may hide significant heterogeneity. Our results also suggest that paternity leave pushes some couples to become more egalitarian, with women working more and men sharing childcare. Thus, more generous paternity leave policies have the potential to be an instrumental tool in promoting gender equality.

Suggested Citation

  • Libertad González & Hosny Zoabi, 2021. "Does Paternity Leave Promote Gender Equality within Households?," Working Papers 1302, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:1302
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    Cited by:

    1. Matthias Doepke & Anne Hannusch & Fabian Kindermann & Michèle Tertilt, 2022. "The Economics of Fertility: A New Era," NBER Working Papers 29948, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Clifton-Sprigg, Joanna & Fichera, Eleonora & Kaya, Ezgi & Jones, Melanie K., 2024. "Fathers Taking Leave: Evaluating the Impact of Shared Parental Leave in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 17076, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Lidia Farré & Cristina Felfe & Libertad González Luna & Patrick Schneider, 2022. "Changing gender norms across generations: Evidence from a paternity leave reform," Economics Working Papers 1812, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Ziegler, Lennart & Bamieh, Omar, 2023. "What Drives Paternity Leave: Financial Incentives or Flexibility?," IZA Discussion Papers 15890, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender equality; specialization; fertility; divorce; time allocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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