Is what's best for dads best for families? Paternity leave policies and equity across forty-four nations

Abstract

In a global economy, paternity leave policies represent one of the most significant expansions of the welfare state that seek to help fathers respond to socio-economic pressures on their work and families. Policy makers who strongly promote socio-economic equity may respond to these global changes with new policy formulae meant to encourage involvement of fathers in their families. Nevertheless, scholars have limited understanding of who benefits from paternity leave policies and what these benefits mean to families. The present study is a comparative analysis of paternity leave policies across forty-four countries. This paper first presents a typology of paternity leave policies. This typology consists of seven criteria that range from duration of benefits to amount of benefits to employment security. This typology is then applied to forty-four countries. The present study demonstrates that a surprisingly small number of countries are devoted to family equity.