Tuesday Seminar – 16 November

How Fathers’ Leave Shapes Attitudes Toward Gender Equality 

Jonathan Homola (Rice University)
Petra Schleiter (University of Oxford)
Margit Tavits (Washington University in St. Louis)
Dalston Ward (ETH Zurich)

Stereotypical attitudes about gender roles help sustain inequalities, which favor men over women in the social, economic, and political domains. We explore whether exposure to counter-stereotypical gender roles reduces traditional gender stereotypes and promotes more equal attitudes. Our study focuses on a real-world social policy intervention that disrupts traditional gender roles: paid paternity leave. We exploit a policy discontinuity in Estonia, which increased fathers’ paid leave entitlement from 10 to 30 days for children born on or after July 1, 2020 and fielded a survey to pre- and post-reform new parents. Contrasting the attitudes of parents who were (and were not) directly affected by the reform that required active choices about adopting the counter-stereotypical gender role, we find that the reform led to more gender egalitarian views (but not to support for positive action policies) in the social and political domains among new parents.

Contact Semih Çakır if you would like to participate in the seminar.

This content has been updated on 17 December 2021 at 2 h 17 min.