 Parenting Skills and Selection into FatherhoodNo 5/2025, Working Papers in Economics and Statistics from Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, Department of Economics and Statistics Abstract: As women’s earnings have risen and parental leave policies expanded, expectations for paternal involvement have grown, potentially shifting the basis of fatherhood from economic provision toward men’s parenting skills. Using Swedish administrative data and a sibling fixed-effects design, we find that non-cognitive ability, key dimension of parenting skills, has become a stronger predictor of fatherhood over time among men with comparable earnings and marital histories. Exploiting a 2002 reform that expanded reserved paternity leave, we further demonstrate that heightened expectations for paternal involvement amplified this selection even when accounting for marriage and earnings. Taken together, the results suggest that societal shifts have altered the traits that shape men’s entry into fatherhood. Keywords: Men; fertility; ability; parenting skills; earnings; marriage; parental leave (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:vxesta:2025_005 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers in Economics and Statistics from Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics, Department of Economics and Statistics Department of Economics and Statistics, School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, 351 95 Växjö, Sweden,. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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