Working Paper Series,
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: Using population wide register data, I exploit the “speed premium” rule in the Swedish parental leave system to estimate the causal effect of a change in the level of benefits per day on the utilization of parental leave. The results show that a 1% (5 SEK ≈ $0.54) increase in the mother’s benefit level per day increases her length of leave by 2.6 days (≈ 1%). Fathers respond by reducing their own time on leave by 1.9 days, i.e. about 75% of the mother’s increase. This suggests that changes in the benefit level effects not only the recipient’s time on leave, but also the division of leave between parents. This is the first paper to causally estimate the elasticity of take-up duration (length of spell) with respect to the parental leave benefit level; which is found to be equal to 1 for mothers.

Keywords: parental leave; division of labor; labor supply; take-up elasticity

JEL-codes: D13; J13; J16; J22

70 pages, February 11, 2019

Full text files

wp2019-2-speedy-resp...-higher-benefits.pdf  Full text

Download statistics

• IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy
• Ordering Working Papers
• Home page for this series

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Ali Ghooloo ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2019_002This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:15:20.