Parenting Leave Policy and Social Sustainability: Does Increase in Paternity Leave Rights Decrease Motherhood Penalty at the Workplace? The Spanish Experience

One of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is to achieve gender equality. To this end, many countries have extended leave entitlements for fathers as a tool to reduce gender inequalities in both the labor market and family dynamics. Spain is among the few countries that have expanded fathers’ leave rights to be equal to those of mothers, based on the principle of non-transferability. Between 2019 and 2021, the duration of paternity leave increased from 5 to 16 weeks, fully paid at 100% of the previous salary. This new entitlement complements fathers’ existing rights—identical to those of mothers—to take unpaid parental leave until the child turns three, or to reduce working hours without pay to take care of his children. Given the scope of this reform, it is important to analyze its impact on the parenthood penalty. Based on an online representative survey conducted in June 2021 among parents with children under the age of seven, this study explores whether the policy leads to an increased work penalty for fathers who make extended use of leave, and whether it helps reduce the gender gap in parenthood-related penalties in the workplace. Using two indicators of the subjective perception of the parenthood penalty, our analysis shows that—without controlling for relevant confounding variables—fathers in the post-reform period report a higher incidence of perceived negative consequences from taking Birth and Care Leave, even more so than mothers. This suggests a narrowing of the gender gap. However, these negative perceptions do not correspond to an increase in the share of fathers who believe that having children has negatively affected their careers. In fact, no significant change is observed in this indicator between the pre- and post-reform periods for either fathers or mothers. Furthermore, once relevant work and family characteristics are accounted for, there is no statistically significant relationship between the length of Birth and Care Leave use and the perception of a parenthood penalty among fathers. In contrast, a significant increase in perceived penalty is observed among those who made use of full- or part-time unpaid parental leave.