Fathers taking leave: evaluating the impact of shared parental leave in the United Kingdom

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

June 19, 2025

Summary:

We study the effect of the introduction of the UK Shared Parental Leave policy in 2015 on both the uptake and the length of leave taken by fathers. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study and a regression discontinuity in time design, we find no evidence that the reform increased either uptake or length of paternal leave, reinforcing questions about its effectiveness.

Published in

Fiscal Studies

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-5890.70000

ISSN

01435671

Subjects

Notes

Online Early

Open Access

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2025 The Author(s). Fiscal Studies published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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