Caring Dads? Universal Childcare, Paternity Leave, and Fathers’ Labor Supply

Mathias Huebener (), Malin Mahlbacher () and Sophia Schmitz ()
Additional contact information
Mathias Huebener: Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
Malin Mahlbacher: Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
Sophia Schmitz: Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)

No 18696, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We study how expansions of publicly subsidized childcare affect the intra-household allocation of labor supply in early childhood, with a particular focus on fathers. Exploiting variation in the roll-out of childcare places for children under three across German counties, we show that increased availability accelerates childcare entry and maternal return to work. Fathers also adjust their labor supply: they take more parental leave and subsequently reduce full-time work, yet without significantly increasing weekday caregiving. These findings imply that childcare policies can reshape labor supply within households, leading to smaller aggregate labor supply effects than suggested by maternal responses alone.

Keywords: public childcare; family policies; parental leave; paternal labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J13 J16 J18 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18696.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:iza:izadps:dp18696

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().