Can Daddies Learn to Care for Babies? The Effect of A Short Paternity Leave on the Division of Childcare and Housework

Ariane Pailhé (), Anne Solaz () and Maxime To
Additional contact information
Ariane Pailhé: Campus Condorcet
Anne Solaz: Campus Condorcet

Population Research and Policy Review, 2024, vol. 43, issue 3, No 14, 48 pages

Abstract: Abstract To foster gender equality and involve fathers in parenting, leave-from-work targeted at fathers has been implemented in many countries. In France, until 2021, fathers can avail of a statutory paid paternity leave of 11 working-days that must be taken within 4 months after childbirth. This article estimates the impact of this short-duration and large coverage paternity leave on the gender division of domestic and parental tasks. We measure the effect of paternity leave using the Elfe survey, a national cohort of children born in 2011. We take advantage of the timing of the 2-month survey: some fathers had already taken their leave, while others intended to but had not done so by then. Taking paternity leave leads to a more equal division of several parental tasks. It affects sharing of domestic activities only marginally. The effect on child-rearing tasks is greater for first-time parents and differs by father’s education level. Paternity leave may provide the opportunity to learn how to perform child-related tasks to fathers, and involving them early in parenting.

Keywords: Paternity leave; Gender; Unpaid work; Work division; Father; Family policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11113-024-09882-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:poprpr:v:43:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s11113-024-09882-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/11113/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11113-024-09882-7

Access Statistics for this article

Population Research and Policy Review is currently edited by D.A. Swanson

More articles in Population Research and Policy Review from Springer, Southern Demographic Association (SDA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().