Why paternity leave is critical for women's economic empowerment

Jody Heymann is a professor in the Faculties of Public Affairs and Public Health at UCLA and founding director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center. Aleta Sprague is an attorney and senior legal analyst at the WORLD Policy Analysis Center. Heymann and Sprague are co-authors of “Equality within Our Lifetimes”.

The first year of a baby’s life lays the foundation for lifelong wellbeing. Yet when countries fail to support both parents during the newborn stage, the first year of life can also lay the foundation for gender and economic inequality. Around the world, just 51 countries provide at least a month of paid leave to new fathers, while 185 do so for mothers. What are the consequences?

For women worldwide, the birth of a baby can have vast and enduring economic impacts. New mothers often lose jobs, lose income, and have little choice but to exit the labor force to meet care needs. Across countries, parenthood widens the gender pay gap, with fathers earning more and mothers earning less. Low-income women and those in informal jobs fare the worst.

The birth of a child also changes relationships. Even before becoming mothers, women worldwide shoulder the majority of unpaid household work - but after a baby arrives, this figure skyrockets. Inequalities at home in turn reinforce inequalities at work. Drawing on stereotypes about family responsibilities, employers screen out mothers during hiring processes, discriminate against young women they presume may soon have children, and promote mothers at lower rates.

Solutions exist. In our new book, Equality Within Our Lifetimes, we examine what 193 countries are doing to support care from infancy to old age and to eliminate gender discrimination at work. The evidence is clear that leave for all parents not only improves infant health during the first year but also advances gender and economic equality. Yet while 96% of countries guarantee paid leave for mothers of infants, just 63% guarantee paid leave for fathers—and when they do, it’s often only a few days. Closing this gap is one of the keys to advancing gender equality and adding trillions to economies worldwide.

Maternity leave on its own helps women maintain jobs and income, while also powerfully supporting infant health - which is why it’s critical that leave be accessible to all women, whether in the formal or informal economy. Nevertheless, when leave is provided to women alone - or when there are vast inequalities in the length of leave provided to mothers and fathers - broader inequalities are reinforced. Women take on more of the household work and occupational segregation may increase, with consequences for women’s earnings.

In contrast, providing adequate leave to both parents can increase gender equality at home and at work—particularly if men are incentivized to take it. In Sweden, for each month of parental leave taken by her partner, a woman’s subsequent earnings increased by nearly 7%. When Spain enacted thirteen days of paternity leave, mothers’ probability of reemployment following childbirth increased by 11%. After Iceland introduced three months of leave reserved for each parent, the share of couples saying that infant care was equally shared during the first month more than tripled.

The potential for impact is massive - and importantly, progress is underway around the world. Since 1995, the share of countries globally with paid leave for fathers has tripled. In the African Union, the rate of change has been even faster: as of 2022, 56% of A.U. countries guaranteed paid leave for fathers, compared to just 13% in 1995. Over the same time period in Latin America, the share of countries with paid leave for fathers increased from 21% to 55%.

Yet our study finds that large gaps remain. Seventy-one countries still have no paid leave for fathers. Moreover, the majority of countries -74% - provide less than three weeks of paid leave to fathers. The U.S. provides no paid leave whatsoever, a gap that has directly contributed to the U.S.’s freefall from 7th to 28th among 36 OECD countries on female labor force participation.

But is providing paid leave to all parents affordable? To be sure, it would require investment - but those costs would be quickly eclipsed by the economic gains. Recent estimates suggest that closing the gender gap in labor force participation would boost U.S. GDP by $2.64 trillion a year. Even if paid parental leave only narrowed the gap by 15%, that would amount to almost $400 billion annually - far exceeding the cost of a comprehensive paid leave policy.

The prospective economic gains around the world are similarly massive: achieving full gender equality in the economy worldwide could increase global GDP by $28 trillion in 2025. Providing paid leave to all is a first critical step toward realizing these returns.