Too Family Friendly? The Consequences of Parent Part-Time Working Rights

Arbeitspapier

We use a difference-in-differences model with individual fixed effects to evaluate a 1999 Spanish law granting employment protection to workers with children younger than 6 who had asked for a shorter workweek due to family responsibilities. Our analysis shows that well- intended policies can potentially backfire and aggravate labor market inequalities between men and women, since there is a very gendered take-up, with only women typically requesting part-time work. After the law was enacted, employers were 49% less likely to hire women of childbearing age, 40% more likely to separate from them, and 37% less likely to promote them to permanent contracts, increasing female non-employment by 4% to 8% relative to men of similar age. The results are similar using older women unaffected by the law as a comparison group. Moreover, the law penalized all women of childbearing age, even those who did not have children. These effects were largest in low-skill jobs, at firms with less than 10 employees, and in industries with few part-time workers. These findings are robust to several sensitivity analyses and placebo tests.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14548

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Demographic Economics: Public Policy ; Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
• Subject: female employment transitions and wages ; compositional bias ; fixed-term and permanent contract employment

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fernández-Kranz, Daniel ; Rodríguez-Planas, Núria
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/245599
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET