Do Family Policies Work for Women? A Global Analysis of Parental Leave, Cultural Norms and Labor Force Participation (1990–2023)

Details

Supervisors

Cassan, Guilhem

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences économiques, orientation générale, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enThis thesis investigates the impact of parental leave policies on female labor force participation through a comparative global analysis. Using a panel of 178 countries from 1990 to 2023, a combination of fixed effects models, event studies, and staggered Difference-in-Differences estimators is applied to isolate causal effects. The analysis focuses on three dimensions: the relative effectiveness of maternity versus paternity leave, the moderating role of gender norms, and non-linearities across income levels. Results show that paternity leave generates long-term gains in women’s labor market participation, while maternity leave has short-term, often insignificant effects. Shared parental leave provisions are found to be ineffective. The impact of paternity leave is stronger in more gender-equal societies and at both high and low levels of economic development, revealing important heterogeneity across contexts. The main contribution lies in identifying the marginal policy drivers that sustain long-run gender equality in labor markets. In particular, targeting fathers—through design features such as non-transferable quotas—yields significantly larger gains than expanding maternity entitlements. These findings have important implications for the design of family policy worldwide.