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The Societal Benefits and Costs of Paid Paternity Leave: Employer, Worker, and Family Responses

15 July 2024

While the economic position of women has improved substantially ​​over the last century, gender inequality remains large in all countries. To further close the gender gap, governments are increasingly incentivizing fathers to take leave from work and spend more time on childcare. Such policies aim to create a more level playing field with mothers in the labor market, who are absent from work due to pregnancy, and to foster a more equal division of parenting and household tasks. In this project, we study recent expansions of paid paternity leave in the Netherlands – from just 2 days before 2019 to 15 weeks in 2022 – to (1) quantify the societal benefits and costs of paid paternity leave and through this (2) understand its impact on economic gender inequality. To do so, we examine how fathers’ leave-taking affects a wide range of outcomes and behaviors of fathers, mothers, children, employers, and coworkers.