Part-time Parental Leave and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from the Netherlands

Laëtitia Dillenseger, Martijn Burger and Francis Munier
Additional contact information
Laëtitia Dillenseger: BETA, Université de Strasbourg
Francis Munier: BETA, Université de Strasbourg

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2023, vol. 18, issue 6, No 8, 3019-3041

Abstract: Abstract There is extensive literature on the relationship between having children and life satisfaction. Although parenthood can provide meaningfulness in life, parenting may increase obligations and decrease leisure time, reducing life satisfaction. In the Netherlands, parental leave is a part-time work arrangement that allows parents with young children to reconcile better work and family commitments. Using panel data from the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS), we estimated with fixed-effects models the impact of the part-time parental leave scheme in the Netherlands on the life satisfaction of parents with young children. We find that the legal framework of Dutch parental leave offering job-protected leave and fiscal benefits are conducive to parents’ life satisfaction. Our findings hold using different model specifications. Additionally, we did not find evidence for existing reverse causality and that shorter and more elaborate parental leave schemes are more beneficial for life satisfaction.

Keywords: Part-time; Parental Leave scheme; Children; Life Satisfaction; Work-life balance; The Netherlands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 H53 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-023-10218-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:ariqol:v:18:y:2023:i:6:d:10.1007_s11482-023-10218-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11482

DOI: 10.1007/s11482-023-10218-4

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Research in Quality of Life is currently edited by Daniel Shek

More articles in Applied Research in Quality of Life from Springer, International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().