Paid Parental Leave and Gender Gaps in Paid and Unpaid Work in Australia and the United Kingdom

Our aim was to investigate whether paid parental leave entitlements affect men’s and women’s time on domestic, care and paid work. Parental leave policies are promoted as gender neutral initiatives to support men and women to more equally share home and work responsibilities and make choices that reduce gender inequality. We also wanted to compare results for Australia and the United Kingdom where both countries have strengthened and improved parental leave entitlements and comparable longitudinal data enable cross-national comparison. We examine time use in three domains – unpaid domestic work, care work and paid work – three years prior to and five years after, having a first child. We calculate length of time on maternity and paternity leave to see if duration of leave changes men’s and women’s time spent on each domain. We also examine whether results vary for high and low-income households.

We find that becoming a parent leads to diverging time for women and men in each domain. Women increase their time in domestic and care work and reduce their time in paid work. The gender gap in all domains widens measurably and remains wide even 5 years after the birth.
Women take several months of maternity leave – between 4 to 9 months. Men take an average of 2 weeks of paternity leave.
Duration of maternity and paternity leave have no consistent effects on gender gaps in domestic work, care work or paid work.
These patterns do not vary consistently in relation to household income. The results are consistent across countries.

Paternity leave for men must be further incentivised to encourage meaningful take-up.
Current policy arrangements for parental leave do not change gender inequality in time use associated with childbirth. Future policy design must address not only the availability of leave, but also its financial generosity and normative framing, in ways that encourage more men to take leave and to take longer leave. This is important if we are serious about reshaping expectations around caregiving roles.