Expanding Paternity Leave: Effects on Beliefs, Norms, and Gender Gaps

Henrik Kleven, Camille Landais, Anne Lassen, Philip Rosenbaum, Herdis Steingrimsdottir and Jakob Søgaard

No 26123, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: We study whether policy can shift gendered beliefs, norms, and labor market outcomes by exploiting a major expansion of earmarked paternity leave in Denmark. The reform generated large first-stage effects, substantially reallocating leave from mothers to fathers. Using a regression discontinuity design combined with new survey data linked to administrative records, we show that the reform makes parents more supportive of paternity leave, shifts gender-role beliefs in a progressive direction, and reduces perceived differences in childcare ability. The reform also narrows gender gaps in earnings and hours worked. The earnings gap falls by 34pp in the first year following childbirth (during leave) and by 2.8pp in the second year (after leave). These results demonstrate that policy can meaningfully influence beliefs, norms, and gender inequality. On the other hand, earmarking restricts families' ability to allocate leave freely and lowers leave satisfaction, highlighting a central trade-off inherent in paternalistic policies.

Keywords: Paternity Leave; Gender Norms; Gender Wage Gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/26123.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:26123

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Moritz Lubczyk () and Matthew Nibloe ().