American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics
ISSN 1945-7782 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7790 (Online)
When Dad Can Stay Home: Fathers' Workplace Flexibility and Maternal Health
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 16,
no. 4, October 2024
(pp. 186–219)
Abstract
We study how fathers' access to workplace flexibility affects maternal postpartum health. We use variation from a Swedish reform that granted new fathers more flexibility to take intermittent parental leave during the postpartum period and show that increasing the father's temporal flexibility—and thereby his ability to be present at home together with the mother—reduces the incidence of maternal postpartum health complications. Our results suggest that mothers bear part of the burden from a lack of workplace flexibility for men because a father's inability to respond to domestic shocks exacerbates the maternal health cost of childbearing.Citation
Persson, Petra, and Maya Rossin-Slater. 2024. "When Dad Can Stay Home: Fathers' Workplace Flexibility and Maternal Health." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 16 (4): 186–219. DOI: 10.1257/app.20220400Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D13 Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
- I12 Health Behavior
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- J32 Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions
- M54 Personnel Economics: Labor Management
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