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Abstract
The father’s quota in the Swedish parental leave system aims at increasing
fathers’ leave use but also gender equality in the home sphere and in the
labor market. This study investigates the effects of the reform of one
month reserved for fathers in 1995 and two months in 2002. We use
parental benefit for the care for sick children as a proxy for division in the
home, and the results indicate that the first reform led to a more equal
sharing of care for sick children, mainly as women who had used a lot of
benefit days earlier on reduced their use. Moreover, after the second
reform women had better income development, especially women who had
earlier had very low income, indicating an increased labor supply rather
than a wage increase. The results indicate that the father’s quota at least
in part also fulfilled the aim of gender equality outside the parental leave
system.