A Firm-Side Perspective on Parental Leave

Mathias Huebener, Jonas Jessen, Daniel Kühnle () and Michael Oberfichtner
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Daniel Kühnle: University of Duisburg-Essen
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Daniel Kuehnle ()

No 14478, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Motherhood and parental leave interrupt employment relationships, likely imposing costs on firms. We document that mothers who are difficult to replace internally take shorter leave and that their firms hire replacements more often. Introducing more generous parental leave benefits erases the link between mothers' internal replaceability and their leave duration. In firms with few internal substitutes this reduces employment in the short-, but not longer-term. Firms respond by hiring fewer women of childbearing age into occupations where they are difficult to replace internally. Taken together, motherhood and generous parental leave policies burden firms that have few internal substitutes available.

Keywords: parental leave; worker absences; firm-specific human capital; substitution; statistical discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J18 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2021-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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