Fathers Taking Leave: evaluating the impact of shared parental leave in the United Kingdom

Joanna Clifton-Sprigg, Eleonora Fichera, Melanie Jones, Ezgi Kaya

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We study the effect of the introduction of the UK Shared Parental Leave policy in 2015 on both the uptake and the length of leave taken by fathers. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study and a Regression Discontinuity in Time design, we find no evidence that the reform increased either uptake or length of paternal leave, reinforcing questions about its effectiveness.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-12
JournalFiscal Studies
Early online date19 Jun 2025
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 19 Jun 2025

Data Availability Statement

The safeguarded version of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey data can be accessed via the UK Data Service.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the editor, Monica Costa Dias, and three anonymous referees
for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

This work is based on data from the Understanding Society, distributed by the UK Data Service and we are grateful for its support. Understanding Society is an initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and various Government Departments, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and survey delivery by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and Verian (formerly Kantar Public).

The authors thank Bastien Chabe-Ferret, Libertad González, Sonia Oreffice, Emma Tominey, Lucas van der Velde, Hosny Zoabi, members of the Project Advisory Board, Understanding Society 2023/24 Fellows and the UKHLS Team, the participants of the University of Bath Department of Economics’ Applied Brown Bag Seminar, the International Conference on Policies and Parental Support 2024, the British Society for Population Studies Conference and the Third Applied Economics Conference (Belgrade) for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft.

Funding

We are grateful to the editor, Monica Costa Dias, and three anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft. This work is based on data from the Understanding Society, distributed by the UK Data Service and we are grateful for its support. Understanding Society is an initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and various government departments, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and survey delivery by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and Verian (formerly Kantar Public). The authors thank Bastien Chabe\u2010Ferret, Libertad Gonz\u00E1lez, Sonia Oreffice, Emma Tominey, Lucas van der Velde, Hosny Zoabi, members of the Project Advisory Board, Understanding Society 2023/24 Fellows and the UKHLS Team, the participants of the University of Bath Department of Economics' Applied Brown Bag Seminar, the International Conference on Policies and Parental Support 2024, the British Society for Population Studies Conference and the Third Applied Economics Conference (Belgrade) for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. J. Clifton\u2010Sprigg received funding from the Understanding Society fellowship programme, a component of the Economic and Social Research Council award, ES/S007253/1.

FundersFunder number
Economic and Social Research Council
National Centre for Social Research
Understanding SocietyES/S007253/1

Keywords

  • UK Household Longitudinal Study
  • parental leave reform
  • regression discontinuity in time

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Accounting
  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

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