The economic and psychological literatures have demonstrated that early investments (private and public) in children can significantly increase cognitive outcomes in the short and long term and contribute to success later in life. One of the most important of these inputs is maternal time....

Parental leave regulations in most OECD countries have two key policy instruments: job protection and cash benefits. This paper studies how mothers return to work behavior and labor market outcomes are affected by alternative mixes of these key policy parameters. Exploiting a series of major...

Many governments invest substantial public funds to foster early childhood education. And yet, there are still many open questions who responds to and who benefits from public investments into early childcare. We use the introduction of free public daycare in German states to analyze its effects...

This study investigates how the duration of child care leave taken by mothers and fathers relates to changes in couples’ division of housework and child care after postnatal labour market return in Germany. It explores whether take-up of child care related leave may impact the gender division...

The introduction of the Australian Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2011 provides a rare opportunity to estimate the labour supply and employment impacts of publicly-funded paid leave on mothers in the first year post-partum. The almost universal coverage of the scheme coupled with detailed survey...

The impact of the duration of parental leave on women's employment in Korea is examined by focusing on the heterogeneous effects. The results of the extension of the maximum job-protected leave from 12 months to 15 months are as follows. First, the policy change led to more female employees...

Parental leave and child care are important instruments of family policies to improve work– family balance. This paper studies the impact of the substantial change in Germany’s parental leave system on maternal employment. The aim of the reform was to decrease birth-related maternal...

This article provides an analysis of the impact of the Qu'ebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP). Using a quasi-experimental design with survey data, we find that mothers spent on average 10 additional days with their newborn following the implementation of the insurance plan, and that both...

Despite changing gender norms, few fathers decide to take parental leave after the birth of a child, and when they do, their leave spells are substantially shorter compared to mothers. This study examines how paternal leave-taking is affected by two key features of leave policies: flexibility in...

This study examines the effect of two recent parental leave reforms in Austria that allow parents to choose leave schemes with varying duration. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the introduction of more flexible scheme choices led mothers to take, on average, 1-2 months less...