Review of Economics of the Household

, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp 385–404 | Cite as

On the sharing of temporary parental leave: the case of Sweden

Article
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Abstract

This paper views temporary parental leave (leave from work to take care of a sick child) as a household public good, produced with time inputs of the parents as the only input. Assuming equal productivities in the production of temporary parental leave and equal utility functions of the spouses, different household decision-making processes are applied to develop theoretical hypotheses on sharing that are thereafter tested empirically. The empirical estimations show that the decision-making process of the spouses can be explained by a Stackelberg model with male dominance. A stronger threat-point of the female is found to push the intra household allocation of temporary parental leave towards greater sharing between the spouses. In addition, an increase in the insurance ceiling will further sharing of temporary parental leave in some families, while reducing it in others.

Keywords

Temporary parental leave Stackelberg model Bargaining power 

JEL Classifications

D13 J13 
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Notes

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank Inga Persson, John Ermisch, Katarina Nordblom, Katarina Katz, David Edgerton, Kristian Bolin, Dan-Olof Rooth, Katarina Steen-Carlsson, Robin Rander, Mårten Wallette, Martin Nordin, Curt Wells, Shoshana Grossbard and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. Financing from the Swedish Insurance Agency and the Crafoord foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of EconomicsLund UniversityLundSweden
  2. 2.The Danish National Center for Social ResearchCopenhagenDenmark

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