Can you stay home today? Parents’ occupations,relative resources and division of care leave for sick children

Abstract

This is one of only a few studies on the division of care leave for sick children (temporary parental leave) between parents in Sweden and is the first to examine the importance of differences in parents’ work characteristics. The study uses register data for parents with children born between 1999 and 2002 to analyse two aspects of parents’ employment that may be of importance for the division of care leave: their relative resources, in this case wages, and different occupations. First, the results show that a father’s share of care leave increases as the mother’s relative wage decreases. This suggests that decisions about care leave are influenced by bargaining power gained through differences in resources. Second, the resources of couples where both partners work in the same occupation are more equal, and such couples also divide care leave more equally than couples with different occupations. However, the fact that same-occupation couples tend to share care leave more equally does not seem to be explained by similarities in the partners’ work characteristics, and may instead be due to unmeasured, stable characteristics. Greater income and career possibilities for the women are proposed as a possible explanation of the division of care leave for same-occupation couples.