Fathers' Time-Use while on Paternity Leave: Childcare or Leisure?

Luis Guirola and Libertad González
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Laura Hospido and Libertad Gonzalez

No 1463, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We provide evidence of fathers' time-use during paternity leave by studying the timing of paternity leave spells around a large sports event with strong male following: the 2022 Soccer World Cup. We use administrative data from Spain, a country with generous paternity leave policies and a strong following of soccer competitions. Our data cover the universe of paternity (and maternity) leave spells, and we exploit the exact dates of the 2022 World Cup in a difference-in-differences framework. We show that, during the exact dates of the Qatar World Cup (November 20-December 18, 2022), there was a daily excess of more than 1,000 men on paternity leave (1.3%), relative to the surrounding dates, and using the year before and after as controls (for seasonality). We also show in triple-differences specifications that this excess is not present in maternity leave spells, or in paternity leave spells among self-employed workers (with much more flexible schedules). We interpret these results as direct evidence that (at least a fraction of) fathers use paternity leave for purposes unrelated to childcare.

Keywords: gender inequality; childcare; paternity leave (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-gen, nep-hea, nep-lab and nep-spo
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