De-penalizing motherhood? The unintended effects of equal and nontransferable birth leaves on job discrimination

Job discrimination against mothers in Spain is blatant. A 2016 controlled field experiment showed that mothers were only half as likely to be called for a job interview than equally qualified fathers, and had a 26% lower probability of getting a job call than equally qualified women without children (González et al. 2019). Persistent evidence of similar discrimination toward mothers has been documented beyond Spain. Job discrimination is known as ‘statistical discrimination’, that is, the belief by employers that mothers are less committed to paid. On average, women still do more than their fair share of care work and are less likely than men to be in full-time employment. Mothers’ disproportionate share of responsibility in childcare lays at the root of employers’ productivity stereotypes and gender-based job discrimination. To redress labor market discrimination against mothers and women in general, Spain extended earmarked paternity leave and equalized it in length to maternity leave. If fathers become more involved in care work, the argument goes, then employer stereotypes would shift and discrimination against mothers may lessen. We aim to test this argument exploiting variation in paternity leave length from recent cohorts of parents in Spain. We also test if fathers now face greater job discrimination than fathers under the shorter paternity leave entitlement. In short, we are interested in the effects of the recent extension in paternity leave on labor market discrimination experienced by mothers and fathers in two distinct periods of parenthood: while expecting a baby and while having a small, dependent child. As of 2021, paternity leave in Spain is equal in length to maternity leave (16 weeks), compensated at 100% of fathers’ wage, and non-transferable to mothers. We exploit this variation in the length of leave in a sample of 3,200 parents of children born before and after the reform (2018-2022). We rely on self-reported acts of job discrimination by our respondents. Namely, we ask respondents if they experienced work-related discrimination while (a) expecting a baby and (b) having a small, dependent child. With a pair of follow-up questions, we measure the types of discrimination experienced. First, we show descriptive results of the levels and types of discrimination recent mothers and fathers experienced. Second, we test for the effects of the reform on reported discrimination while controlling socioeconomic and labor market predictors of discrimination, including employment sector, contract type. Results indicate that while levels of reported discrimination toward mothers have remained stable across cohorts, expectant fathers exposed to ENBE report (a) higher levels of discrimination and, on some types, (b) rates of discrimination that are comparable to those reported by mothers. We do not find evidence of increased discrimination against fathers after having a child. Our results thus suggest that extending paternity leave has not, thus far, ameliorated labor market discrimination against women, and suggest that equal and non-transferable leave benefits bring about comparable levels of discrimination toward fathers. The implication is that extending paid leave for fathers may widen the income gap between families with and without children.