What kind of men take parental leave?

Nada Stropnik, Institute for Economic Research, Slovenia
Natasa Kump, Institute for Economic Research, Slovenia

More than thirty years ago men were first granted the right to parental leave. Since only small proportions of fathers used to take it, paternity leave or father's quotas of paternity leave were introduced in some countries. In most cases these proved to be success stories, positively influencing the fathers' take-up of the parental leave. The fact that fathers have not been eager take parental leave even in the countries with full earnings compensation suggests the prevailing influence of non-monetary factors on their decision-making. The paper will try to explain the fathers' behaviour (take-up of parental leave) by five groups of indicators: a) institutional arrangement, b) demographic variables, c) economic variables, d) attitudes towards children and parenthood, and e) attitudes towards gender division of roles. Descriptive statistical- and multivariate analyses will use the IPPAS database (for eight European countries) and the Slovenian databases of parental- and paternity leave beneficiaries.