Gender Gap in Parental Leave Intentions: Evidence from 37 Countries

Abstract

Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender-based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context contribute to this inequality, we assessed parental-leave intentions in young adults (18-30 years old) planning to have children (N = 13,942; 8,880 identified as women; 5,062 identified as men) across 37 countries that varied in parental-leave policies and societal gender equality. In all countries, women intended to take longer leave than men. National parental-leave policies and women's political representation partially explained cross-national variations in the gender gap. Gender gaps in leave intentions were paradoxically larger in countries with more gender-egalitarian parental-leave policies (i.e., longer leave available to both fathers and mothers). Interestingly, this cross-national variation in the gender gap was driven by cross-national variations in women's (rather than men's) leave intentions. Financially generous leave and gender-egalitarian policies (linked to men's higher uptake in prior research) were not associated with leave intentions in men. Rather, men's leave intentions were related to their individual gender attitudes. Leave intentions were inversely related to career ambitions. The potential for existing policies to foster gender equality in paid and unpaid work is discussed.

Did Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms About Gender Equality at Home Change During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Cross-National Investigation

“…University students tend to represent the upper social classes, hence the importance to replicate these findings with representative samples. Nevertheless, the findings on the current population are still noteworthy as university students may later hold politically influential positions that shape social development (Meeussen et al, 2016;Olsson et al, 2023). Another issue with the current analyses was power: The present data lacked statistical power to detect small effects at the country level with the available subsamples, which explains why the shift in descriptive norms was significant across countries, but not statistically significant within any single country.…”

Gender (in)equality at the kitchen table: A diary study on how Parents' coordination facilitates an equal task division and relationship quality

“…To resolve these persistent gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work, emphasis is placed on changing governmental and employment law policies (e.g., increasing paternity leave take-up, flexible work arrangements, decreasing daycare costs). However, these policies do not automatically translate into behavioural change in how parents divide tasks at home with their partner (Pruckner & Sausgruber, 2013;Tankard & Paluck, 2016) or could even have countereffects (Olsson et al, 2023;Yerkes et al, 2017). In the current paper, we propose that explicit daily coordination of tasks is a way for parents to break down the ingrained gender stereotypes.…”

The Impact of Motherhood on Women’s Career Progression: A Scoping Review of Evidence-Based Interventions

“…Male managers and leaders who role model equal parenting may also help to achieve these aims. Organizational and governmental policy that introduces a wellpaid, nontransferable "use it or lose it" policy for parental leave of fathers and secondary caregivers may also help to normalize men's equal participation in caregiving [66], as well as initiatives that address men's own gender role attitudes and biases [67].…”