Despite the growing availability of paternity leave policies across the world, most fathers do not take any leave at all or only a small proportion of what they are eligible for. This could be driven by families only marginally valuing the time that fathers spend with their newborn children. Using a novel survey on a nationally representative sample of childbearing individuals in the UK, we elicit beliefs about the Shared Parental Leave (SPL) policy. We show that individuals importantly and positively value an additional week of leave taken by the father, instead of the mother, on a range of outcomes pertaining to the well-being of the mother, the father, and the child. We further show that gender attitudes importantly predict returns of SPL across most outcomes analyzed, and that a simple information experiments results in individuals positively updating their beliefs of returns to paternal leave.
Presented by:
Laura Fumagalli (ISER)
Date & time:
12 Jun 2024 12:30 pm - 12 Jun 2024 13:30 pm
Venue:
2N2.4.16 (to join us online, please contact the seminar series organisers at iserseminars@essex.ac.uk)
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