Can Family Policy Reduce Mothers’ Sick Leave Absence? A Causal Analysis of the Norwegian Paternity Leave Reform

This paper was motivated by the high absentee rate due to sickness among women and the assumption that mothers’ combination of gainful employment and family obligations may results in higher levels of sick leave absence. One popular policy used in Norway to encourage more equal sharing of domestic work between parents is paternity leave. Using Norwegian register data, we took advantage of the introduction of a Norwegian paternity leave reform in 1993 to empirically examine the importance of fathers’ involvement in childcare an attempt to explain the relationship between mothers’ stress in reconciling their work and family life and sick leave absence. Sick leave absence was measured in the number of days paid by the National Insurance Administration at 15 days and above. The reform raised the total leave period by 7 weeks, but reserved 4 weeks for the father. The reform process was fast, so all mothers were already pregnant at the time of the policy announcement. The results indicate that we can reject an effect of the paternity leave reform on mothers’ sick leave absence. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013