Sharing Responsibility? Short- and Long-term E ects of Sweden’s “Daddy-Month” Reform

In 1995, the Swedish government reformed the parental leave system with the view to increase the share of fathers in child care, change gender roles in society, and improve the chances of mothers in the labor market. We investigate a unique data set comprising the entire population of Swedish children born in a span of two weeks before and two weeks after the reform. The reform constitutes a natural experiment. Comparing two cohorts of a total of 7600 newborns, their mothers, and fathers over a period of eight years, we look at a) the number of days mothers and fathers take parental leave and b) the number of days for care of sick children. We find that the reform had a strong short-term e ect on parental leave by fathers, but that there are no long-run e ects on fathers’ willingness to increase their part in care for sick children.