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participation for both parents for inclusion in the sample, excluding 43
percent of couples, finding negative effects on women’s income, which
suggests that fathers’ time at home is complementing and not substituting
mothers’ time. Also Dahl et al. (2013) indicate that there are no effects of
extended maternity leave or fathers’ quota on mothers’ labor market return
or fathers’ labor market attachment.
A prolonged parental leave for women in Canada increased labor market
return after childbirth as the existing policy was so short many women
opted out of the labor market (Baker and Milligan 2008). Similarly, a
German study finds that, when German parental leave became income
compensated for 12 months, women’s employment during the child’s first
year decreased but increased after this period (Kluve and Tamm 2013).
In Austria an extension of parental leave from one to two years in 1990
decreased earnings and employment for women in the short term. A
reduction of leave to 18 months in 1996 instead improved earnings and
employment (Lalive and Zweimuller 2009). It is pointed out that paid leave
in combination with job protection is the best way to facilitate parents’
childcare and mothers’ continued labor market attachment (Lalive et al.
2014).