Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 42 No. 4 2024

Is Parental Leave Costly for Firms and Coworkers?

Anne Brenøe¹; Serena Canaan²; Nikolaj Harmon³; Heather Royer⁴

¹ University of Copenhagen · ² American University of Beirut · ³ Wroclaw University of Economics and Business · ⁴ University of California, Santa Barbara

Abstract

We estimate the effect of a female employee giving birth and taking parental leave on small firms and coworkers in Denmark using a dynamic difference-in-differences design. We find little evidence that parental leave take-up has negative effects on firms and coworkers overall. This is because most firms are very effective in compensating for the worker on leave by hiring temporary workers and by increasing other employees’ hours. In contrast, we do find evidence that parental leave has negative effects on a small subsample of firms that are less able to use their existing employees to compensate for absent workers.

DOI

10.1086/725554

Volume

42

Issue

4

Pages

1135-1174

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex openalex crossref

Cite

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