Parental leave system design impacts on its gendered use: Paternity leave introduction in Spain

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• Author: Cristina Castellanos‐Serrano,Lorenzo Escot,José Andrés Fernández‐Cornejo
• Date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12875

RESEARCH

Parental leave system design impacts on its gendered

use: Paternity leave introduction in Spain

Cristina Castellanos-Serrano

1

|Lorenzo Escot

2

|

José Andrés Fern

andez-Cornejo

2

1

Department of Applied Economics,

Universidad Nacional de Educaci

on a

Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain

2

Department of Applied, Public and Political

Economics, Universidad Complutense de

Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Correspondence

Cristina Castellanos-Serrano, Universidad

Nacional de Educaci

on a Distancia (UNED),

Paseo Senda del Rey 11, Despacho 3.29,

Madrid 28040, Spain.

Email: ccastellanos@cee.uned.es

Funding information

This research was funded by the Spanish

National Plan for Scientific and Technical

Research and Innovation, Ministry of Science

and Innovation, reference RTI2018-094901-B-

I00: “Gradual Equalization of Paternity Leave

With Maternity Leave in Spain: Evaluation,

Biases, Perspectives and Equality Policies”

(2019-2022).

Abstract

Objective: The article evaluates the 2007 introduction of

nontransferable and fully paid paternity leave in Spain.

Background: Previous research has focused on paternity

leave reforms, especially in the Nordic and continental

countries. This article studies characteristics of the paren-

tal leave system design, including transferability, payment,

and purpose of different types of leave for mothers and

fathers in a Mediterranean country.

Method: We use a quasi-experimental approach based on

a sample of heterosexual dual-earner couples with children

born before and after the paternity leave introduction. We

estimate differences in differences regression models.

Results: The 2007 reform caused a significant increase in

fathers’number of days of parental leave. Most fathers

used the whole nontransferable and fully paid paternity

leave, but they hardly used transferable or unpaid leave.

Mothers used all of these, especially paid leave.

Conclusion: The number of nontransferable fully paid days

of parental leave provided by law approximates the actual

number of days most fathers used.

Implications: The policy design matters. A design of equal,

nontransferable, and fully paid leave for each parent is

necessary for equal use by fathers and mothers—and thus

for gender equality in families and work.

Author note: The surveyused for this workwas supported by the“Instit uto de las Mujeres”(Women’s Institute)of the SpanishGovernment

underGrant 040/10. The “Surveyof the Use of Parental Leaveand Its Labor Consequences”(Encuestasobre el uso de los permisos parentales

y sus consecuencias laborales, EUPPCL 2012) is available online: http://www.ucm.es/data/cont/docs/85-2015-12-24-Microdatos.xlsx

Special thanks go to Giorgia Iacopini for her patience, availability, and nuanced comments and suggestions. Thanks to Oliver von

Schiller for his help in the editing process. We also thank the anonymous reviewers and editors for their insightful comments and

suggestions that greatly improved the article. Last but not least, we appreciate the fathers and mothers who answered the survey for

allowing us to use their data for research.

Received: 27 September 2021Revised: 25 July 2022Accepted: 3 January 2023

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12875

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,

distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2023 The Authors. Family Relations published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2024;73:359–378. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 359

KEYWORDS

dual-earner couples, early childhood, family policy and law, father

involvement, gender roles, parental leave

How public policies deal with childcare impacts on gender equality within families and in the

labor market. Providing affordable and high-quality childcare and education services and the

parental leave system (PLS) are vital policies to improve female labor market participation

(Castellanos-Serrano, 2020). However, the impacts of both policies on men’s involvement in

childcare point in opposite directions. The PLS can directly increase men’s available time for

childcare, whereas childcare services may increase the time to participate in the labor market

(Castellanos-Serrano & Perondi, 2022). Today, the PLS, overwhelmingly aimed at mothers,

serves as a structural reinforcement of traditional gender roles. Nevertheless, PLS reforms can

be a first step in supporting the increase in men’s involvement in childcare and, therefore, a shift

men’s behavior and gender roles (Bünning, 2015).

Using time for careis considered a key indicator for measuring gender equality in feminist

theory, as reflected by the distributionof paid and unpaid work (Eydal et al., 2018). Having more

days of paid parental leave (PPL) usually implies more time spent on childcare afterward

(Almqvist & Duvander, 2014). Fern

andez-Cornejo et al. (2016) measured how using more days

of parental leave (PL) was related to greater involvement in childcare over the 2 first years of a

child’s life in Spain, as is the case in Iceland (Arnalds et al., 2013). If most fathers generally take a

significant portion of the PLS, this becomes the male norm of parenthood, and gender roles

change little by little (Arnalds et al., 2022). When fathers spend more time in childcare, gender

inequality is reduced, as care and work practices become less ruled by traditional gender norms.

Thus, the objective of this article is to provide evidence on which kind of PLS reform and final

design can transform men’s behavior and promote equal use of the PLS. Some research has

focused on PLS use by women and its consequences on their labor market participation

(Akgunduz & Plantenga, 2013). Other studies examined men’s use of PPL and its results for

men’s and women’s participation in the labor market and the “stalled revolution”(Hook, 2006).

That is, although many women work, most men do not act as autonomous caregivers. More

recently, authors have been analyzing the ongoing but slow process of change in the gender divi-

sion of labor and the transformation of gender social norms (Bünning, 2015; Goldscheider

et al., 2015).

The number of days used by fathers and mothers and the impact of this duration on their

subsequent involvement in childcare are key to evaluating the PLS and its effects on gender

equality in family dynamics and the job market. The initial care period affects bonding and

fathers’care involvement, which lasts over time (Almqvist & Duvander, 2014; Fern

andez-

Cornejo et al., 2016; Haas & Rostgaard, 2011). An increase in men using the PLS goes against

traditional gender roles. It reduces productive and reproductive gender gaps—that is, the gen-

dered division of labor, one of the critical elements of gender inequality.

This article presents the concept of the PLS to overcome differences in terminology and charac-

teristics that may distort analysis and comparisons across time and countries (Blum et al., 2018). It

analyzes the change in a labor policy that significantly affects labor conditions, family and gender

dynamics, fertility rates, and children’s well-being (Akgunduz & Plantenga, 2013;Feldman&

Gran, 2020). It evaluates the types of parental leave used, the extent of use, and whouses them.

The PLS has recently been reviewed at the European Union level with the 2019 Work–Life Balance

Directive, and future reforms in various countries are taking place or expected to take place to

transpose the directive in the short term because it is mandatory. Spain completely reformed its

PLS in 2021, becoming the first—andsofaronly—country in the world to provide equal, non-

transferable, and fully paid parental leave for mothers and fathers. There is as yet no official data-

base or evaluation of this 2019 reform. Jurado-Guerrero and Muñoz-Comet (2021)analyzed

360 FAMILY RELATIONS