Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Leave4NextGen (Intergenerational Spillovers of Paternity Leave)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-10-01 bis 2025-12-31
Persistent gender inequality in labor markets is partly driven by the unequal division of childcare following childbirth. To address this, many European countries have introduced paternity leave policies to encourage greater father involvement. While previous research shows such policies can change parental behavior, a critical question remained: do these changes have lasting, intergenerational effects? This MSCA project aimed to investigate whether paternity leave policies influence the gender attitudes and life choices of the next generation. Specifically, the objectives were to determine if: (1) exposure to a father eligible for paternity leave promotes more egalitarian gender-role attitudes in young adults, and (2) this translates into measurable changes in their educational, career, and family-formation decisions. The project leveraged natural experiments created by paternity leave reforms in several EU countries.
The project combined quasi-experimental econometric methods with large-scale survey and administrative data. Two primary studies were conducted. The first analyzed Belgium’s 2002 paternity leave reform using a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) and population-level administrative data. It confirmed the reform durably increased fathers’ daily childcare time. However, tracking children into early adulthood revealed no significant effects on their educational attainment (middle/high school completion, PISA scores), early labor market outcomes (employment, wages), or early family formation (cohabitation, parenthood). The second study expanded the scope to six European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Norway, Sweden). Using an RDD and data from the “Project Implicit” platform, it measured subconscious gender attitudes via an Implicit Association Test (IAT). This research found that sons—but not daughters—exposed to fathers eligible for paternity leave developed significantly less gender-stereotypical attitudes. Follow-up analysis with EU-SILC survey data indicated these attitudinal shifts had behavioral consequences: affected sons in Scandinavia were more likely to enter high-skilled, female-dominated occupations (e.g. in healthcare or education).
This research provides novel evidence on the intergenerational impacts of family policy. First, it demonstrates that while increased paternal involvement due to paternity leave does not harm child development (addressing concerns from earlier studies), it also does not generate detectable advantages in traditional human capital outcomes by early adulthood. This precise “null result” is itself a significant contribution, ruling out even small effect sizes. Second, and more innovatively, the project reveals that paternity leave can act as a powerful tool for social change by reshaping gender norms in the next generation. It is the first study to provide cross-country, causal evidence that paternity leave reforms reduce implicit gender stereotypes among young men and encourage them to break occupational gender barriers. This moves beyond prior work focused on adolescents or educational choices, showing effects persist into adulthood and influence career paths—a key factor in long-term gender equality.