Why Parents Take Unpaid Parental Leave: Evidence from Spain

Abstract

With women’s rising participation in the labour market and the concomitant growth in the proportion of dual-earner families, the harmonization of work and family life has acquired increasing social significance in developed countries. Demands for public authorities to implement policies that would further such harmonization therefore have intensified. One of the responses has been to broaden the scope of traditional maternity leaves with policies that would enable fathers to take time off work to care for their children and facilitate their return to work on termination of their leave (Kamerman and Moss 2009). Although national governments have reacted in very diverse ways to such demands (Moss 2014), the initiatives observed in the European Union (EU) over the last 25 years define a common trend (Gauthier 2002) characterized by longer leaves (although this parameter is very variable), by a higher percentage of the salary paid during leaves, and by greater flexibility in leaves’ use (OECD 2011). Moreover, fathers’ usage of such leaves has been fostered by mainstreaming parental leave policies in overall equality policy (Meilland and Math 2004; Bruning and Platenga 1999; Haas and Hwang 2008). Despite this convergence in trends in parental leave policies across Europe, major inter-country differences persist in duration, pay, and flexibility.