Fathers took earlier parental leave after the second daddy month reform

After reserving a second month of parental leave benefits, fathers’ uptake of parental leave in the first two years of the child’s life increased even more if they were also exposed to indirect reform effects, via their coworkers. This is found in a recent dissertation in economics at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), studying the introduction and expansion of parental leave quotas in Sweden, and how the parental leave of fathers may be affected by the uptake of their coworkers.

A father with a stroller walks in the forest
In 1995, the Swedish government introduced the first reform of quotas in the parental leave system, reserving one month of paid leave for each parent. Photo: Konstantin Aksenov / Mostphotos

 


Parental leave quotas, often referred to as daddy months, was first introduced in Sweden in 1995 when one month of the total available days with benefits was reserved to each parent. In 2002, this was extended to two months and the total available amount of benefits was increased correspondingly.

In a new dissertation, the researcher and economist Malin Tallås Ahlzén has studied how men’s parental leave was affected by the reforms. To capture indirect reform effects, she studies differences in the uptake of fathers whose coworker had a child either before or after the reform.

“I see that fathers whose coworker had a child shortly after the second reform appears to take more parental leave relatively early. There is no difference in the total uptake of parental leave, meaning that coworkers affected only the timing of parental leave”, said Malin Tallås Ahlzén, recently appointed doctor in economics at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University.

To capture potential effects on gender equality in parenting, Swedish research typically focuses on parental leave uptake in the first two years of the child’s life. Parental leave at older ages is foremost used for vacation and reduced working hours.
 

Researcher Malin Tallås Ahlzén in a room at SOFI, Stockholm University
Malin Tallås Ahlzén studied how the reform with the two "daddy months" in Sweden affected different types of workplaces. Photo: Daniel Rossetti / SU


“Increased uptake of parental leave when the child is young is therefore indicative of an increased responsibility of fathers, which is consistent with the purpose of the reforms” said Malin Tallås Ahlzén.

 

 

The second reform was perceived more positively

Parental leave of coworkers does not appear to affect fathers following the introduction of the quota in 1995, and there are several plausible explanations for why the effects of the two reforms are different, according to Malin Tallås Ahlzén.

“It could be because the second reform was perceived more positively, as it was complemented with a corresponding increase of the total days of benefits available, which may have been conveyed by the coworkers. It could also be because the norm of parenthood at the time of implementation was different, making fathers more susceptible to the increased uptake of coworkers in 2002”, said Malin Tallås Ahlzén.

The fact that the reserved number of days amounted to 60 by the second reform may also have made parental leave of coworkers more visible, while 30 days spread across several years more easily passed unnoticed. This may have contributed to fathers being affected only after the expansion in 2002.

 

 

Fathers took parental leave –  even when it was costly to the employer

Malin Tallås Ahlzén has also investigated if the reform effect differs across types of workplaces. Sampled workplaces were categorized into high or low costs of absence due to parental leave, in terms of monetary- and normative costs. The monetary cost was considered high where internal replacement was scant, while normative costs were high where other colleagues at the workplace were unlikely to share their own parental leave equally.

Before the reforms, parental leave uptake of coworkers was lower in workplaces with high monetary or normative costs. After the second reform, the gap with respect to monetary costs closed almost entirely.

“The results suggest that the second reform contributed to fathers no longer protecting their employer from financial costs of absence, alternatively that the employer learned to better replace workers on leave”, said Malin Tallås Ahlzén.

Her conclusion from the study is that increasing the number of days reserved to each parent can foster gender equality in parenting, and that it is important to also consider the indirect reform effects.

“We know from previous research that men’s uptake of parental leave increased due to the quotas, but the second reform appears to have also indirect effects, contributing to a positive trend with increased uptake of parental leave when the child is relatively young, even in workplaces where absence is more costly”, said Malin Tallås Ahlzén.
 

How the study was carried out

The study use register data from Statistics Sweden, linked to detailed information about the uptake of parental leave benefits from the Social Insurance Office. The analysis is based on a so called regression discontinuity design (RDD), where the researcher compares fathers whose coworker have a child before him, either before or after the parental leave quota was implemented. Fathers whose coworker have a child born within a short time frame are more comparable and therefore births close to the date of implementation are assigned a higher weight. The analysis is restricted to fathers working with a single coworker who have a child born within 6 months of the reform. To focus on cases where interaction is more likely, the coworker is required to have at least the same level of education as the father, and the number of employees at the workplace cannot exceed 150. Sample restrictions yield a sample of 11,597 observations for the first reform and 12,309 for the second.

Monetary costs of parental leave are based on the number of coworkers with the same level of education, where few implies restricted possibilities of internal substitution leading to higher costs facing the employer. Social costs of parental leave are based on the correlation between uptake of parental leave before the reforms and individual characteristics. This is used to construct an average likelihood that others at the workplace share their own parental leave more equally than prescribed by the law, based on for example their age, education, industry and municipality.

 

Read more about the research

Tallås Ahlzén, M. (2022). Essays in Swedish Family Policy (PhD dissertation, Department of Economics, Stockholm University). Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-207713

 
Contact

Malin Tallås Ahlzén
Researcher and PhD in economics
Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholms University
Epost: malin.ahlzen@sofi.su.se
Telefon: 08-16 25 22