Parenting Skills and Selection into Fatherhood

As women’s earnings have risen and parental leave policies expanded, expectations for paternal involvement have grown, potentially shifting the basis of fatherhood from economic provision toward men’s parenting skills. Using Swedish administrative data and a sibling fixed-effects design, we find that non-cognitive ability, key dimension of parenting skills, has become a stronger predictor of fatherhood over time among men with comparable earnings and marital histories. Exploiting a 2002 reform that expanded reserved paternity leave, we further demonstrate that heightened expectations for paternal involvement amplified this selection even when accounting for marriage and earnings. Taken together, the results suggest that societal shifts have altered the traits that shape men’s entry into fatherhood.