Effects of Extending Paid Parental Leave on Children's Socio-Emotional Skills and Well-Being in Adolescence

Objective: This article introduces the reader to the Special Issue "Labour markets, families and public policies shaping gender relations and parenting" and gives a theoretical and empirical overview of gender roles and gender equality in Europe.
Background: This Special Issue analyses the connection between labour markets, families, social policy, and gender relations in several European countries.
Method: The six included articles are based on qualitative and quantitative approaches and data that have been gathered in Finland, Norway, Poland, Spain, and across the entire EU.
Results: Key findings are: (1) In less egalitarian countries, children of single parents suffer more nutritional, educational and social life deprivation. (2) The institutional design of parental leave can contribute to reproducing gender inequality in the use of leave. (3) The institutional design interacts with cultural norms in shaping fatherhood practices of migrant fathers. (4) Individualised, performance-based wage and career schemes can counteract the effects of gender-equalising family policies. (5) Fathers taking leave independently from the mother and for an extended period are more involved in childcare beyond the leave period, and (6) the use of longer unpaid parental leave by mothers leads to a more unequal distribution of childcare between the parents.
Conclusion: This Special Issue highlights that even in the most egalitarian countries, there remain persistent challenges to achieving gender equality regarding labour market, institutions and family life.

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Labour markets, families and public policies shaping gender relations and parenting: Introduction to the Special Issue

Parental leave policies are important instruments regulating how the men’s and women’s concurrent role as parents and employees is valued and encouraged. Although paternity leave in Moldova was introduced in 2016, the share of fathers who benefit from this leave remains low. The article presents the results of the qualitative sociological study conducted in 2022 with fathers who took paternity leave and fathers who did not take it. The aim of the research was to determine the barriers faced by fathers in taking paternity leave. The benefits of paternity leave for both fathers and the whole family were found: formatting strong emotional bonds between father and child, developing newborn care skills, strengthening confidence in their ability to care for children, improving family relations. In the implementation of this leave, fathers face social, professional, financial and cultural difficulties. Traditional stereotypes of behavior and ideas that a woman (mother) should take care of a child have a negative impact on the position of men (fathers) about the possibility of using parental leave. The level of education and the position on the labor market are determining factors in the use of paternity leave. Respondents who took paternity leave have higher education, stable occupational position and relatively high incomes; and those who did not take this leave have secondary education, unstable occupational position, and low incomes. Most of the fathers who used parental leave had the first child in the family, and those who did not use it had a second or third child. The study found that some employers do not encourage their employees to take paternity leave. Often this is due to a shortage of workers in the organization / enterprise, and is also more typical for the private sector.


Paternity leave: first results of introduction in Moldova

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Maternity Leave and Paternity Leave: Evidence on the Economic Impact of Legislative Changes in High Income Countries

Gender Gaps from Labor Market Shocks

Gender in the Labor Market

* Labor market policies for expecting and new mothers emerged at the turn of the nineteenth century. The main motivation for these policies was to ensure the health of mothers and their newborn children. With increased female labor market participation, the focus has gradually shifted to the effects that parental leave policies have on women’s labor market outcomes and gender equality. Proponents of extending parental leave rights for mothers in terms of duration, benefits, and job protection have argued that this will support mothers‘ labor market attachment and allow them to take time off from work after childbirth and then safely return to their pre-birth job. Others have pointed out that extended maternity leave can work as a double-edged sword for mothers: If young women are likely to spend months, or even years, on leave, employers are likely to take that into consideration when hiring and promoting their employees. These policies may therefore end up adversely affecting women’s labor market outcomes. This has led to an increased focus on activating fathers to take parental leave, and in 2019, the European Parliament approved a directive requiring member states to ensure at least two months of earmarked paternity leave. The literature on parental leave has proliferated over the last couple of decades. The increased number of studies on the topic has brought forth some consistent findings. First, the introduction of short maternity leave is found to be beneficial for both maternal and child health and for mothers’ labor market outcomes. Second, there appear to be negligible benefits from a leave extending beyond six months in terms of health out-comes and children’s long-run outcomes. Furthermore, longer leaves have little, or even adverse, influence on mothers’ labor market outcomes. However, some evidence suggests that there may be underlying heterogeneous effects from extended leaves among different socioeconomic groups. The literature on the effect of earmarked paternity leave indicates that these policies prove effective in increasing fathers’ leave-taking and involvement in childcare. However, the evidence on the influence of paternity leave on gender equality in the labor market remains scarce, and somewhat mixed. Finally, recent studies that focus on the effect of parental leave policies for a firm find that in general, firms are able to compensate for lost labor when their employees go on leave. However, if firms face constraints when replacing employees, it could negatively influence their performance. childcare involvement. The evidence on mothers’ and fathers’ labor market outcomes varies across countries and policies. Findings show no to small positive e ↵ ects of paternity leave on mothers’ earnings and no to small negative e ↵ ects on fathers’ earnings. Paternity leave is also found to increase family stability and fertility, but again, the small amount of existing literature provides mixed ﬁndings on these topics. The non-monetary e ↵ ects of the di ↵ erent types of earmarked paternity leave are in general understudied, and more studies are required to make an overall conclusion.

A. Lassen

Papers

Maternity Leave and Paternity Leave: Evidence on the Economic Impact of Legislative Changes in High Income Countries

Gender Gaps from Labor Market Shocks

Gender in the Labor Market

DISCUSSION Maternity Leave and Paternity Leave: Evidence on the Economic Impact of Legislative Changes in High Income Countries