Parental Leave--Possibility or Trap? Does Family Leave Length Effect Swedish Women's Labour Market Opportunities?

Abstract

Sweden is known for its policies aimed at facilitating the combination of work and family for both mothers and fathers. The parental leave insurance is one important part of these policies, considered to reduce the work-family conflict for women. However, there is scarce knowledge about the effects a long family leave break may have on women’s occupational careers and the studies on the topic so far mainly refer to the period up to the early 1990s. In addition, issues of selectivity are seldom dealt with. In the present study, we focus on mothers’ leave-taking behaviour in the period from 1974 to 2000 and estimate the relationship between family leave length and the transition rate to an upward occupational move upon return to work. Data from the nationally representative Swedish Level of Living Survey of 1991 and 2000 are used. The results indicate that women with leaves of 16 months or more were less likely to experience an upward occupational move once back on the job again. In a multilevel, multiprocess model including terms for unobserved heterogeneity, the main results remain, and we conclude that even after controlling for selectivity into different parental leave length, we find a negative effect of time out on subsequent career moves.