Paid Family Leave, Fathers’ Leave-Taking, and Leave-Sharing in Dual-Earner Households

Ann Bartel, Maya Rossin-Slater, Christopher Ruhm, Jenna Stearns and Jane Waldfogel

No 21747, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on the impact of paid leave legislation on fathers’ leave-taking, as well as on the division of leave between mothers and fathers in dual-earner households. Using difference-in-difference and difference-in-difference-in-difference designs, we study California’s Paid Family Leave (CA-PFL) program, which is the first source of government-provided paid parental leave available to fathers in the United States. Our results show that fathers in California are 0.9 percentage points—or 46 percent relative to the pre-treatment mean—more likely to take leave in the first year of their children’s lives when CA-PFL is available. We also examine how parents allocate leave in households where both parents work. We find that CA-PFL increases father-only leave-taking (i.e., father on leave while mother is at work) by 50 percent and joint leave-taking (i.e., both parents on leave at the same time) by 28 percent. These effects are much larger for fathers of sons than for fathers of daughters, and almost entirely driven by fathers of first-born children and fathers in occupations with a high share of female workers.

JEL-codes: J08 J13 J18 J2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-lab and nep-lma
Note: CH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published as Ann P. Bartel & Maya Rossin-Slater & Christopher J. Ruhm & Jenna Stearns & Jane Waldfogel, 2018. "Paid Family Leave, Fathers’ Leave-Taking, and Leave-Sharing in Dual-Earner Households," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, vol 37(1), pages 10-37.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21747.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Paid Family Leave, Fathers' Leave-Taking, and Leave-Sharing in Dual-Earner Households (2015)
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:nbr:nberwo:21747

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21747

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().