Paid Parental Leave and Gender Gaps in Paid and Unpaid Work at the Transition to Parenthood: Evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom

WIP Seminar

Tuesday, May 5
12:15 to 13:00
UNIL - Géopolis, Room 5799
 

Suri Li: "Paid Parental Leave and Gender Gaps in Paid and Unpaid Work at the Transition to Parenthood: Evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom"

One of the most intractable and structurally embedded forms of gender inequality is women’s unequal responsibilities for unpaid domestic and care work. Gender inequality deepens at entry to parenthood with women typically reducing their paid work hours to take on increased levels of care and domestic work. Paid parental leave entitlements is one way that governments and employers have attempted to mitigate the effects of parenthood on gender inequality. But there is mixed evidence about whether such entitlements reduce gender inequality or support women to undertake both family and labour market work. We investigate the effect of paid parental leave on gender time use gaps in paid and unpaid work in Australia and the United Kingdom. Using comparable longitudinal household data, we assess the association between maternal and paternal leave taking at the time of a first birth and time spent on care work, domestic work and paid work. We examine results 3 years prior to the first birth and 5 years after to capture anticipatory effects and time spent by parents as the child grows and is less dependent on mothers for breastfeeding. We also examine whether household income moderates observed effects. Our results show that women continue to take the majority of leave associated with a first birth. We find very modest and inconsistent effects of parental leave on time use at home and in paid work with no clear evidence that parental leave affects gender gaps in time spent on domestic work, care work or paid work. The patterns are largely unchanged by household income. We conclude that future policy frameworks must address not only the availability of leave, but also its structure, generosity, and normative framing, in ways that are sensitive to gender and socioeconomic disparities and capable of reshaping expectations around caregiving roles.