Research projects

The main objective of this project is to analyse the causal labour market impact on both women and men of increasing paternity leave entitlements and equalising it to that of mothers in Spain. However, before undertaking the causal analysis, a second objective is to undertake an in-depth descriptive analysis of paternity leave duration.

With regards to this second objective, we published a policy brief (EsadeEcPol Policy Brief Series) in March 2024. The results were widely discussed in the Spanish media (for instance:  El Confidencial, RTVE, ElDiario.es, El Economista). We then worked to further dig into these results and produce an academic paper, submitted to a special issue of SERIES – The Journal of the Spanish Economic Association (we have received a Revise and Resubmit recommendation, and are working towards completing the revision by March 2025). To obtain the results, we draw on administrative data covering all paternity and maternity leave permits since 2016. We find that fathers now routinely take nearly all the weeks available, and since 2018—when the option to split paternity leave was introduced—the share of fathers choosing to split the leave has steadily risen, surpassing 50% by 2023. Furthermore, the number of weeks taken non-concurrently with mothers has risen significantly. Before 2019, fathers took no leave separately from mothers. By 2023, they took on average four weeks after the mother had already returned to work. As a result, infants under one year old now spend more time being cared for by just one parent rather than both parents simultaneously or none. Spain’s success compared to other advanced economies likely owes to three key policy features: a mandatory initial period, exclusive father-specific weeks, and generous payment levels.

With regards to the second objective, we have been given access to data on all the maternity and paternity leave permits linked to the Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales. We have cleaned the data and built a panel for each birth with a father/mother with a paternity/maternity leave permit, and have constructed relevant labour market outcome variables. We are now in the process of producing the first event study graphs/regressions for births before and after each of the paternity leave reforms, to understand whether these reforms have differentially affected different labour market outcomes (related to employment, earnings, sector, occupation, etc.) by gender.